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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

(www.economist.com)
666 points jcartw | 2 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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bestouff ◴[08 Apr 25 11:47 UTC] No.43620573[source]▶
> Pix has spiced up Brazil’s fusty banking sector, but it gives the central bank a worrying amount of power

I think a largely prefer a government-run payment system than an US company monopoly.

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nicce ◴[08 Apr 25 11:49 UTC] No.43620584[source]▶
Payment systems take huge fees. It is always good if they get back to the country and not elsewhere. Digital paying is something fundamental. Like electricity.
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augusto-moura ◴[08 Apr 25 12:09 UTC] No.43620757[source]▶
Brazilian Pix is free though, at least for the time being. IMO the biggest thing is not the money behind it, but the ability to track individual payments. Even that, I prefer the government to have that information, than some shady owner of a private company
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souenzzo ◴[08 Apr 25 12:16 UTC] No.43620802[source]▶
PIX are free for persons. Companies may* pay for pix services. My bank (that is not a good bank) charges a fixed amount of 4 BRL (aprox 1 USD) per transaction (to send PIX. not to receive) PIX in "maquininhas" may cost ~1% to the seller.

* may: banks are allowed to charge.

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1. Voultapher ◴[09 Apr 25 06:08 UTC] No.43629345[source]▶
To give some reference, using stripe you pay 2-3% for credit card payments and PayPal charges you ~5% of the transaction amount. Apple store and Steam take 30%. So honestly 1% sounds like a great deal.
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2. norman784 ◴[09 Apr 25 07:58 UTC] No.43629870[source]▶
I think comparing Steam and to some extend Apple with payment methods, they are stores and it cost money to store apps and games and for this one I'm not 100% sure, but I read a while ago that they also pay taxes for you in the country you sell, while pure payment processing services are just a proxy to move money from one account to another. You could argue that 30% is high for that, but we aren't discussing it here.