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Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant

(www.economist.com)
666 points jcartw | 1 comments | 08 Apr 25 10:59 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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SwiftyBug ◴[08 Apr 25 11:48 UTC] No.43620583[source]▶
I've been living in Brazil for the last 20 years.

Pix revolutionised the way we transact in Brazil. I've used Pix to pay for things that cost only cents, and I have a friend who bought her house using Pix. The system just works for any transfer amount. And it's so easy to use.

Its speed is truly baffling, and so is its reliability. Never have I failed to make a Pix payment because of downtime. I never cease to be amazed by how fast money arrives in my Brazilian account when I make a withdrawal directly from my EUR wallet on Wise. I receive a push notification from my Brazilian bank before Wise finishes running the animation of confirmation of withdrawal. It's like magic.

And it's so widespread that nowadays I don't even question whether someone accepts Pix. When I get in a taxi, no matter how old the driver is, it's certain that they take (and prefer) Pix.

I've even had homeless people ask me for Pix instead of change on multiple occasions.

Cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance.

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Xunjin ◴[08 Apr 25 14:31 UTC] No.43622233[source]▶
The world needs to implement Pix. I truly believe that is a system which can replace SWIFT with just a intermediary, with a virtual currency that exchange rate between the 2 countries in the operation, this way the world can have a freedom outside dollar and really fast transactions.
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brabel ◴[09 Apr 25 08:08 UTC] No.43629925[source]▶
Here in Sweden we have Swish which seems to be very similar (just send money to anyone with a phone number/QR Code), but Swish is a private company, not government.

Relatedly, most company payments here, including water/electricity/etc bills, are paid using a system called Bankgiro, which is also a private company (and you can pay Bankgiro bills using Swish, of course).

And even the de facto national electronic identity system, BankID, is developed and provided by a private company. It is used to login to your bank as well as most government systems and any company can use it for login (which most Swedish companies do).

So, it differs from the Brazilian model in that all services are provided by private companies, not by the Government. Not sure which is better, to be honest. On the one hand it's hard to trust a Government like the Brazilian one given its history... on the other hand, trusting a private company even for public services seems wild: what if they go bankrupt, get sold to foreign investors, started using shady business practices??

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1. carlhjerpe ◴[09 Apr 25 11:57 UTC] No.43631133[source]▶
There's a reason why our government doesn't do anything that you can squint into a monopoly, the EU comes after us with pitchforks when we implement government monopolies. So the alternative is regulating some standard that a private organization implements and hope regulations are sound enough to not be exploited, or pray self regulation works.

That's why our railways are falling apart and why we have 2500 pharmacies but people up north have to travel to the town 100k away to get meds.

I wish the government that we elect every 4 years with public voting and kindergarten bartering could take ownership of things that are essential to life in Sweden, but nop it's all privatized so the companies can optimize profits by removing utility (BankID seems to be an exception here where the incentives align between companies and citizens).