[protastus]

I think we need to put this in context for folks who are not from Brazil.

Comparatively, a domestic bank wire in Brazil before Pix was already easier and faster than one in the US today. I don't recall the bank fees being bad either.

The issue is that bank wires were never designed for buying lunch at the food court. They're not instant and not user friendly to set up.

Pix is alien technology next to the stuff we have in the US.

[johnea]

The entire problem solved by Pix is an artificially created obstacle put in place so banks can charge for something they do for free.

The article doesn't mention China's digital renminbi, but it is similar, including the aspect of being offered by the country's central bank.

Rather than this looking like "Alien tech" in the US, it's just another example of things in the US looking more like stone age tech to the rest of the world.

Like banned chinese EVs, and a pushback on solar electricity generation, all of these are manifestations of the US government primarily making it easier for multi-billion $$ multi-national corpses to filch the general population.

This isn't just the orange cheato, it's been the policy of every modern US administration, with the backing of the majority of the legislature.

And for some reason, the plurality of voters seem to be in favor.

[bombcar]

“Money transfer” is, at the end, a database transaction. It’s a solved problem - no aspect of what is needed is unsolved.

It’s just that there are billion dollar entrenched companies that do not want sending money to be as easy as a click.

[everforward]

It’s a distributed transaction, which is what makes it complicated. You need to atomically remove money from an account in one database and add money to an account in a totally separate database.

There’s a bunch of weird corner cases that come with that. What if the receiving account ID doesn’t exist, or the recipients bank flags the transaction, or the sender closes their account before the recipients bank has applied their end of the transaction.

I think some of these transfer systems are simpler because they’re global so both records are in the same database. Transactions can be technically atomic rather than organizationally atomic (ie atomicity is present in the technology, rather than approximated by processes).

[Freak_NL]

It sounds a bit like the Dutch Tikkie with the QR codes and instant transfer. Of course, in the EU most bank wires are already free when using SEPA, and often nearly instant as well. This Tikkie thing is a way to easily create a payment request for people who can't be arsed to simply carry cash (and raise the country's resilience to system failure in the process).

[iurisilvio]

Brazilian living in NL, experienced in both. I think biggest difference is Tikkie doesn't give you an easy identifier. Great for privacy, but being able to send money to your email/phone number makes a difference for some real time use cases. QR code helps, but it is not the same.

[usrnm]

IBAN works pretty ok as an identifier when you need that. Bank transfers between Dutch banks are almost instant anyway

[kristjank]

It is instant provided your financial institution works within the SEPA Instant transfer system

[Sukram21]

Since last year, all EU banks have to support SEPA Instant Transfer, both receiving & sending, at the same price as a usual transfer (Instant Payments Regulation 2024/886)

[ptman]

If only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPC_QR_code supported a sepa instant bit so that one could just show a qr code, scan it with whatever payer banking app and authorize the sepa instant payment.

[dzhiurgis]

> free when using SEPA, and often nearly instant as well

It shocks me how well it works sometimes. Literally press pay and move eyeballs to notifications and it's there already.

[madaxe_again]

Pix is ok - but it’s clunky to use and has a single point of failure.

On the former - paying is:

  Unlock phone
  Launch app
  Authenticate
  Choose to pay with pix
  Scan QR code
  Enter amount
  Authenticate again
  Wait
  Payment made
  Show cashier your phone

Which is considerably more involved than a contactless payment.

On the single point of failure side of things - I was at an event in Brasilia a month or so back, pix grinds to a crawl, taking 10+ minutes per transaction, and the drinks queues rapidly got out of hand. As nobody accepts cash any more, and because nobody has a card any more, this meant they sold practically no drinks.

So it ain’t bad but tbh passing bits of paper back and forth is still easier.

[vitorgrs]

There's Pix contactless payment. Both Samsung and Google wallet support. Samsung added a few weeks ago. Google added 1 or 2 years ago.

You can actually pay QR Code Pix now with Samsung by just opening the camera too.

Apple refuses to implement Pix on Apple Pay, and regulatory agencies are trying to change that...

Pix integration with Google Pay it's just amazing.

Imagine the situation in the US as if every app or website magically used Google Pay.

Well, that's Brazil now if you use Android. Because as soon as you copy a Pix code, it will prompt Google Pay :) And every service in Brazil have Pix... Even international ones as Stripe supports...

[reese_john]

USD is a hard currency unlike the BRL. It is not supposed to move that fast by design. Google “Regulation E”. Brazil has no such strong provisions for protecting unauthorized transfers out of your account

[zorked]

Your comment is absolute nonsense.

[rickdeckard]

> USD is a hard currency unlike the BRL

How much does this matter in the context of paying in BRL, to a BRL merchant, in Brazil?

[GoblinSlayer]

>strong provisions for protecting unauthorized transfers out of your account

What's with people complaining that they can't terminate transfers out of their accounts?

[martheen]

Doesn't seem too different from QRIS in Indonesia, authentication is relatively painless since some apps offer either pin or fingerprint. Being open standard (multiple banks, electronic wallet and payment gateways support it, multiple payment apps support it, all interoperable) probably help since there's never any delay I've experienced for years, and this system is handling from small payment on roadside hawkers to electronic purchase in large stores both offline and online.

More fancy payment flow are also available, such as vendors generating one-time QR code that already include the payment amount, and the user apps generating one-time QR code that the vendor scan, thus switching some of user steps to the vendor.

In most cities I've lived and visited, using QR is far more convenient than paper. Good luck using contactless when most phones don't support it, and even when Visa & MasterCard pushed their contactless standard, I never encounter a single vendor with a working machine (this range from small shops to large hypermarket). Maybe because they have bigger MDR than QR, but from customers PoV contactless simply don't work, until QRIS also adopt NFC and suddenly it's workable (but not widespread yet since most phones still don't)

[jszymborski]

Would you say that Pix is comparable to Canada's Interac Debit?

[protastus]

Speaking as a non-expert, I think Pix has much bigger scope. Pix is account-to-account. One can buy real estate, pay bills, make person-to-person and business-to-business transactions, government payments, recurring payments. The funds also settle instantly.

Most people don't experience the full scope of Pix which is impressive.

[amarant]

Sounds like pix is very similar to the Swedish swish. Phone numbers are used for identity, payments are instant, businesses often have qr codes with their identity etc..

It's like WhatsApp but with money!

[throwaway473825]

The Swish system is private, which means that the fees are as high as the market can bear. In many cases cards are cheaper.

If the e-krona happens, that would be a better comparison.

[cess11]

As is the dominant e-ID platform, because our politicians are fond of bank cartels.

It kind of works and Swish does too, unless they're down which happens every now and then, but there is room for improvement that would be easier realised as a public sector endeavour.

[amarant]

Free for individuals, and costs 3 euro per month for companies +0.1 euro per transaction (only for companies)

What cards are you taking about that are cheaper than that?

[adrithmetiqa]

The credit card companies really missed the boat here to become the standard for consumer to consumer payments. Of course, from their perspective, they know that people would not accept having to pay for this service so the companies won’t go near it.

[jszymborski]

eInterac is also account to account, but single transaction limits are far too low to transact down payments or even many b2b payments.

People still increasingly pay their rent here via eInterac.

[vitorgrs]

e.g you can subscribe monthly to ChatGPT or Amazon Prime using Pix. It's called "Automatic Pix".