from Hacker News

Pix surpasses credit and debit card transactions in Brazil

by finphil on 7/27/23, 1:37 AM with 101 comments

• by woliveirajr on 7/27/23, 4:10 AM

  How it works:

  1 - you register your keys with your Bank, and it communicates the Central Bank. It can be your "ssn", your phone number, your email or some random id.

  2 - to pay somebody, just provide the key. Your institution will look up in the Central Bank database who'll be paid with that key (the destination: Bank, account number)

  3 - your Bank withdraw the funds from your account, the destination Bank deposits it (there's a tight time limit), the Central Bank does the compensation among banks.

  4 - there's no disput: once you authorized it in your Bank, it's done.

  If your Bank provides you with credit, it's a commercial relation between you and your Bank. Pix is just a transfer from your balance, it doesn't involve credit lines and so on.

  So, in the end it's simple: money transfer with tight rules made by a Central Bank and obligatory adoption from all Banks.

  The keys are the most relevant aspect to the clients: your phone number, your "ssn" ( In Brazil it's called CPF and it's public, it's not a secret number). Just like WhatsApp made it easy by using phone number instead of some login.

• by _trackno5 on 7/27/23, 5:29 AM

  Pix is a great system and I definitely appreciate what our central bank has done.

  But what I don’t see people talk about are the other motivations (other than no fees compared to credit cards)

  The last number I remember is that around 30MM Brazilians did not have bank accounts. There’s a large amount of “informal” work that happens in the country where people just get paid in cash. Pix is an alternative to that. It incentivises people to get a bank account.

  My tin-foil hat alter-ego can’t help but think that this helps the central bank have more oversight of where the money is going. And the central bank does share data with our “IRS”. That’s probably a good way to find people that should’ve been paying taxes and aren’t.

• by LightMachine on 7/27/23, 3:55 AM

  I'm Brazilian and Pix is great. No reason to use anything else. Our government is terrible, but our central bank is actually quite competent. Credit to where it's due.

• by andirk on 7/27/23, 3:02 AM

  Are there similar payment systems out there similar to this? If it has truly surpassed credit and debit transactions, and there are no serious flaws that need addressing, then why don't we all start Pix in our countries?

  Disclosure: I'm heavily invested in crypto and payment processors, and this payment system sounds awesome!

• by kattagarian on 7/27/23, 3:57 AM

  It's shocking how fast Pix got inside of Brazillian culture, everyone have it. It's easy to set (you need a bank account), it's easy to use (believe me, even the banks who are known for having terrible UX did a good job with the interface) e just takes a second complete a transaction! With no charges!

• by Aspos on 7/27/23, 4:28 AM

  Pretty similar thing works in Kazakhstan and it too is ubiquitous and surpassed Visa/MasterCard a few years ago. Totally displaced cards and cash from payments and from public conscience. QR, no disputes, instant transfers and public ID seem to be the winning combination.

  The only difference being that it is run by a private bank, Kaspi, not a central bank.

• by unstatusthequo on 7/27/23, 1:21 PM

  First thing that came to mind is: government with record of every transaction anyone makes on this platform. O_o I suppose the counter argument is that's no different than credit cards and banks providing that under government order anyway. So this just cuts out the middleman?

• by carlosjobim on 7/27/23, 4:47 AM

  To everybody celebrating in this thread: What is the benefit for the consumer over paying with a card?