13 ms·

Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September

138 points by CXSHNGCB 1y ago

Argonaut998 1y ago
Last week Trump targeted Pix and Brazil for discriminating against Mastercard and Visa[0]. Also last week there was the Steam debacle involving the same two companies which brought attention to the power that this duopoly holds all across the world. In Brazil many people, if not the majority use interest free instalments to pay for anything above groceries - “parcelas”, all of which, until now, were done through Mastercard & Visa. So this is yet another blow to these companies and perhaps accelerated by Trump’s threats. It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, with the news of the dependence on Azure and their aims to decouple from the US. It’s a nice apt story for what’s being going on this last week. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc495f0 https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc49...
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Europe and the UK have instant SEPA credits and debits, no? That's 41 countries within the single instant payment system. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_payments/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Real-Time-Payments-World-Map-May-2025.pdf https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
  - Argonaut998 1y ago
    It’s crap in comparison. It’s not flexible at all. It’s still SEPA even though it’s “instant” and not all banks support it yet (although they are supposed to).
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      October 2025 is the deadline for all banks to support the instant part, and I don't understand your complaint that it's instant but "still SEPA." That's good! It's a utility that just works. You can always bolt trimmings on at the institutional level. What are your expectations for what it should be?
    - MilaM 1y ago
      SEPA is not crap. It's actually pretty awesome, considering that you can instantly transfer money between 5000+ banks in 30+ countries, with practically zero fees. The UX of SEPA is lacking in comparison to other modern payment systems for sure. I'm confident though, that it will improve soon. Wero [1] seems like a decent start and appears to be gaining traction lately. It's basically a layer on top of SEPA Instant payment with extra features and a decent app based UI/UX. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
      - jjcob 1y ago
        In austria QR codes for sharing payment info are getting popular. Many invoices have a QR code on them. You can then use your banking app to pay the invoice. Banking apps can also generate a QR code for receiving payments. They are not quite as seamless as tap-to-pay, but they work with pretty much every bank in the Austria, which is neat.
      - SomeUserName432 1y ago
        > with practically zero fees We pay 2.50 EUR for a SEPA transfer, it's ridiculously expensive. We need local integrations for every market to cut costs.
        MilaM 1y ago
        That is pretty expensive, I agree. I pay zero additional fees when using my private account. For my business account I'm charged ~30 Cents flat per transaction. I know that there are banks offering better terms, but I'm too lazy to switch for just a couple of Euros in savings.
  - dathinab 1y ago
    yes, but at the moment the user facing interfaces are not greate (in most countries, they are pretty good in some countries) - sending money (P2P, P2B, B2B) often requires manually entering a IBAN in your banking app/website (_except in some countries_, and some systems on top of it can also reduce the friction) which is okay for many P2P use cases but not good for physical shop checkout P2B use case or ad hoc bill sharing use case in P2P (also compared to some other solutions this often comes with less consumer protections) - doesn't interface (well) with the card payment/payment terminal ecosystem (but technically can and you do find it in some edge cases) - fast (in seconds) payment cost extra and price is bank/country dependent (through in some countries it's free or consistently "cheap" e.g. a fixed 15ct(€) independent of amount and recipient) but this is likely too change, some countries have already put up standards for more convenient P2P (and P2B??) payment methods and they seem to be in the process of being adapted EU wide (but not necessary UK and other non EU SEPA members) in addition there are standardized interfaces for 3rd parties companies to link up with SEPA and/or you bank account which do technically allow companies to innovate on improvements. Practically this often runs into issues, 1) from a consumer POV in many (not all) EU countries the state of card payment is just fine and convenient features like easy bill sharing many people either don't need or don't know what they miss out on. 2) many issues are on the (physical) shop side, but you need to provide things users can use and having multiple systems in parallel is often not very practical, 3) at the same time without shops allowing new systems customer don't have any reason to adapt such new systems anyway all of this likely will improve quite a bit relatively soon
  - tonfa 1y ago
    Also digital euro is targeting payment systems (https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...)
  - jowea 1y ago
    From the comments it seems it supports direct person to person transfers, but how easy is it to use it for payments? Can you use SEPA to pay for your groceries? Or buy something on the Internet?
- vimy 1y ago
  EU is building Wero to replace all the national payment systems. It uses sepa under the hood. https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/
- dathinab 1y ago
  > discriminating against Mastercard and Visa how can you discriminate against a duopoly ;) > It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, (you seem to be drifting into the server center topic but I will take "this space" as payment processing) It's complicated, EU has many payment standards which 1) are required between banks, and 2) theoretically allow integration with new payment processing methods needing only the end-users agreement not the banks. So you can relatively easily send money between people (and to company accounts, too) without touching visa/mastercard at all (how easy that "relative part" does still vary a lot tho. (Also if you are willing to pay a fixed up price (commonly free or 15ct) also fast, like in seconds). At the same time when it comes to 1) banking cards, 2) payment terminals, pretty much everything is build on Mastercard/Visa (where I live mostly Visa). Like there is no competition when it comes to the secure chips this systems use. (But then both PayPall and pretty much all of China have kinda shown you don't really need them as long as you have internet, which payment terminal often need to for any non very small payment amounts). Also because people are so used to a well working reasonable secure card payment system many tries to push for app based alternatives kinda fail, sure due to their dominant position in online shopping Paypal is still a thing, but also commonly relegate to at most one of multiple options in online shopping. Just to be clear the exact dynamics differ _vastly_ between country in the EU. Any I really don't like the generic pay in rates functionality, it's a trap which really can fuck up peoples life (similar to using the dipso all the time/not getting out of it, or large credit boundary or however it's called for credit cards; to be honest dispo tends to be worse tho).
- inerte 1y ago
  "interest free" deserves quotes. It appears to be so because the installments have the same value but in reality it's priced in the overall length vs price. The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.
vitorgrs 1y ago
Just a reminder that Google Pay supports Pix! You can pay using Pix with QR Code, keys or just NFC with it. There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay...
- diego_moita 1y ago
  > There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay... No surprise. 1. Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal. 2. If Apple were to implement it they wouldn't be able to get away with the huge margins they charge.
  - rescbr 1y ago
    > Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal. Apple has 9% market share in Brazil. This is not irrelevant. It’s not a luxury thing for millionaires, but rather a status symbol for the middle class. There’s this whole market of iPhone leasing plans where you get a new phone whenever Apple releases a new one, banks offering 21x installment payment plans to purchase iPhones, and a vibrant secondhand and refurbished market. This 9% segment of the population can’t be ignored, specially considering the income inequality in the Brazilian society. They might not have a high credit card limit or due to lack of financial literacy, they want to avoid using credit cards, so they might prefer to use debit and PIX for daily transactions.
    - igortg 1y ago
      How much of these 9% uses Apple Pay? My bet it's just a small part. People still use Pix and physical Credit/Debit Cards. Google Pay/Apple Pay are far behind.
      - rescbr 1y ago
        Considering all the major banks credit cards are able to be added to Apple Pay's wallet, my educated guess is if a person has an iPhone and a credit card, they are using it through Apple Pay most of the time. Even meal voucher cards are now able to be added to Apple Pay's wallet. I don't have statistics readily available, but you can search for CADE's (Brazilian fair trade regulator) inquiry 08700.002893/2025-17 on Apple's refusal to support Pix on Apple Pay and comb through the documents.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ojosilva 1y ago
This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments and subscriptions), but preferred by merchants and consumers alike. Obviously credit cards give you credit, if that's what you want/need, maybe a postponement until your monthly statement is closed, or chargebacks and maybe insurance, but CCs should be an exception, not the norm they are now, with a bunch of embedded costs we all pay for, one way or another.
- ek750 1y ago
  agreed. Additionally it may reduce the power of fringe groups from pressuring private companies who are doing legal business. The recent Steam and itch.io takedowns due to collective shout come to mind.
- rcruzeiro 1y ago
  Systems like these are very common in Europe. Here in Norway, you can pay for almost anything, anywhere with Vipps. It works very similarly to Brazilian Pix. Another system I have used in the past is the Portuguese MBWay which although similar to Pix and Vipps, doesn’t seem to be as widely adopted as the former.
  - closewith 1y ago
    Vipps and MBPay are a pale shadow of Pix. No aliases, no mandatory participation, much lower merchant fees, and instant settlement not dependent on the merchant bank.
    - Tmpod 1y ago
      MBWAY has card aliases, I believe it had been a thing since the 90s (previously know as MBNET).
  - 1y ago
diego_moita 1y ago
I believe the greatest story behind Brazil's Pix, India's UPI and Kenya's Mpesa is the emergence of a lot new forms of money. We will have strong national currencies supported by these payment systems, destroying Visa and Mastercard and hurting PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. These systems have a lot more potential than most people imagine (e.g.: micro lending , even for illiterate people). We will have "gangster money", a.k.a. crypto currencies, to sustain illegal activities. There is no other use case for crypto, only this. And we will probably have "economic blocs" money (e.g.: whatever thing the BRICS come up with). In this scenario I'd hope for a big change in the international payments system. The dollar will not have one rival, will have many. I hope it dies by a thousand cuts.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
  One of the key benefits of India’s UPI is that it’s removed the middle man when it comes to benefits to the poor which has drastically reduced corruption and ensured the money goes to the people it’s supposed to. The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms, but in reality, it’s the actual improvement in life driven significantly by the adoption of UPI that’s played the biggest role.
  - gruez 1y ago
    >The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms Examples? The only discussion of "religious terms" around Indian coverage by western media is about how the ruling party BJP panders to "Hindu nationalism", which can be simultaneously true alongside competent leadership.
  - mkbkn 1y ago
    How has UPI reduced corruption? Please enlighten me.
- orbisvicis 1y ago
  > There is no other use case for crypto, only this. I'm sorry but last few months have done nothing if not demonstrate the need for crypto currency, aka digital cash. It may not be ready, but it is likely the only path forward. In the meantime Monero is relatively stable, sufficiently anonymous, and has comparatively low transaction fees. The monopoly of existing payment processors cannot continue. They have a stranglehold on fees and issue cards that promote economically harmful activities. They and contactless payment processors sell your data. And now they control what you can and can't purchase. Enter national digital currencies such as as the proposed CBDC. Fear-mongering sites making such outlandish claims [1]. So I do a bit of research, and find [2]... wait, what? "In addition, it [full anonymity] would make it virtually impossible to limit the use of the digital euro as a form of investment – a limitation that is essential from a financial stability perspective." Suddenly I trust [3] so much less. The technical controls required to implement inventory limits would just as easily enable expiration dates and automatic devaluation, or whatever overreach governments deem necessary down their slippery slope. 1. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-an-expiration-date-how-cbdcs-could-borrow-a-radical-idea/ https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a... 2. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-an-expiration-date-how-cbdcs-could-borrow-a-radical-idea/ https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a... 3. https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-for-digital-money-to-eliminate-cash/ https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-f... Where does Pix fall in this spectrum?
atbpaca 1y ago
In a sense, Trump's rant against Pix is promoting it to the world. Moreover, some stores in Portugal and more recently France are accepting Pix as form of payment.
- jowea 1y ago
  Those are for the benefit of Brazilian tourists I guess?
  - guhcampos 1y ago
    Generally, yes. You need an account in some Brazilian bank to use PIX, so these are likely Brazilian nationals living abroad and accepting payments directly to their Brazilian accounts.
- bgnn 1y ago
  It's not a small population. There's estimated 40k Brazilians in the Netherlands for example, most of them illegal. They need a payment system which doesn't require a European bank account. PS: I don't think anyone is illegal, but the system push them out.
anonymousDan 1y ago
I wonder what the total value to the Brazilian economy is to keep Visa/MasterCard's cut of so many transactions in Brazil instead of being siphoned offshore.
- crossroadsguy 1y ago
  It's not just that. It's also about - one fine day a nation waking up to Visa/MC "disconnecting" that nation. Why? Well, maybe the mothership nation's leader just felt like it. Who the hell knows. The point is - these nations don't want to find that out. Almost all of these countries have faced such sanctions, blocking, control etc in one way or the other at some point.
klysm 1y ago
Visa and MasterCard are shaking in their boots and will scratch and bite on their way down to kill anything like this in the US.
- vitorbaptistaa 1y ago
  This has already started with Trump's tariffs: https://valorinternational.globo.com/foreign-affairs/news/2025/07/16/us-targets-pix-in-probe-into-brazils-unfair-trade-practices.ghtml https://valorinternational.globo.com/foreign-affairs/news/20... > While the system is not named directly, a document from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) says that “Brazil also appears to engage in a number of unfair practices with respect to electronic payment services, including but not limited to advantaging its government-developed electronic payment services.” I'd be surprised if there aren't big tech/credit card companies lobbying behind this.
  - vitorgrs 1y ago
    Earlier this week, Brazil VP Geraldo Alckmin (who is also a Development, Industry, Trade and Services Minister) meet to talk about tariffs with several big tech executives and also a "big tech" lobbyist. Worth to point out that.... Visa was there. - Igor Luna, Legal Consultant of the Brazilian Digital Economy Chamber - Nuno Lopes Alves, General Director of Visa - Gustavo Lage Noman, Vice President of Government Affairs at Visa - Márcia Miya, Government Affairs Manager at Apple - Gustavo Dias, Head of Legal and Institutional Relations Latin America - Yana Dumaresq, Director of Public Policy at Meta - Daniel Arbix, Legal Director at Google Igor Luna were doing heavy lobby against social network regulation that happened.
cynicalpeace 1y ago
When I first moved to LatAm, the cashiers always asked how many "cuotas" I wanted to pay. I was initially confused and realized it meant I could take a (interest free?) loan to pay for my purchases in installments. I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA. Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.
- joseda-hg 1y ago
  It really will depend on the country If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans) It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card)) Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees
- d0100 1y ago
  It's common because people want goods but don't have the money to buy it Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments
- owebmaster 1y ago
  People can't save so they need to pay with credit to buy things they want, even it that means paying 2x the original price.
- rescbr 1y ago
  It's interest-free for the customer because the interest was already bundled in the good's price. It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing. There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance. This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.
zanellato19 1y ago
This is such good news. The amount of value extracted of the brazillian people from outlandish interest rates from credit cards is unbelievable and this will free all of us from it.
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Pix is great now - one concern is that it needs to be nimble enough to evolve as the country does. If it is still meeting the needs of Brazil & Brazilians in 10+ years time that will be an even greater triumph. Meanwhile to the Brazilian people, congratulations & enjoy being world leaders in payments!
drumnerd 1y ago
Fuck trump, the Epstein buddy Ave Brasil
childintime 1y ago
It's time for all of us that travel to have 2 pins: the regular one, and a second one that notifies the issuer that the transaction happens at gunpoint, in which case the amount that can be taken is drastically reduced.
- beng-nl 1y ago
  This is called a duress pin and is implemented in alarm systems.
andrewjl 1y ago
On a technical level are there big differences between Pix and FedNow[0]? Besides this upcoming installment feature. [0] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow

138 points by CXSHNGCB 1y ago

Last week Trump targeted Pix and Brazil for discriminating against Mastercard and Visa[0]. Also last week there was the Steam debacle involving the same two companies which brought attention to the power that this duopoly holds all across the world. In Brazil many people, if not the majority use interest free instalments to pay for anything above groceries - “parcelas”, all of which, until now, were done through Mastercard & Visa. So this is yet another blow to these companies and perhaps accelerated by Trump’s threats. It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, with the news of the dependence on Azure and their aims to decouple from the US. It’s a nice apt story for what’s being going on this last week. [0] https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc495f0 https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc49...

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Europe and the UK have instant SEPA credits and debits, no? That's 41 countries within the single instant payment system. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_payments/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Real-Time-Payments-World-Map-May-2025.pdf https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
- Argonaut998 1y ago
  It’s crap in comparison. It’s not flexible at all. It’s still SEPA even though it’s “instant” and not all banks support it yet (although they are supposed to).
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    October 2025 is the deadline for all banks to support the instant part, and I don't understand your complaint that it's instant but "still SEPA." That's good! It's a utility that just works. You can always bolt trimmings on at the institutional level. What are your expectations for what it should be?
  - MilaM 1y ago
    SEPA is not crap. It's actually pretty awesome, considering that you can instantly transfer money between 5000+ banks in 30+ countries, with practically zero fees. The UX of SEPA is lacking in comparison to other modern payment systems for sure. I'm confident though, that it will improve soon. Wero [1] seems like a decent start and appears to be gaining traction lately. It's basically a layer on top of SEPA Instant payment with extra features and a decent app based UI/UX. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
    - jjcob 1y ago
      In austria QR codes for sharing payment info are getting popular. Many invoices have a QR code on them. You can then use your banking app to pay the invoice. Banking apps can also generate a QR code for receiving payments. They are not quite as seamless as tap-to-pay, but they work with pretty much every bank in the Austria, which is neat.
    - SomeUserName432 1y ago
      > with practically zero fees We pay 2.50 EUR for a SEPA transfer, it's ridiculously expensive. We need local integrations for every market to cut costs.
      - MilaM 1y ago
        That is pretty expensive, I agree. I pay zero additional fees when using my private account. For my business account I'm charged ~30 Cents flat per transaction. I know that there are banks offering better terms, but I'm too lazy to switch for just a couple of Euros in savings.
- dathinab 1y ago
  yes, but at the moment the user facing interfaces are not greate (in most countries, they are pretty good in some countries) - sending money (P2P, P2B, B2B) often requires manually entering a IBAN in your banking app/website (_except in some countries_, and some systems on top of it can also reduce the friction) which is okay for many P2P use cases but not good for physical shop checkout P2B use case or ad hoc bill sharing use case in P2P (also compared to some other solutions this often comes with less consumer protections) - doesn't interface (well) with the card payment/payment terminal ecosystem (but technically can and you do find it in some edge cases) - fast (in seconds) payment cost extra and price is bank/country dependent (through in some countries it's free or consistently "cheap" e.g. a fixed 15ct(€) independent of amount and recipient) but this is likely too change, some countries have already put up standards for more convenient P2P (and P2B??) payment methods and they seem to be in the process of being adapted EU wide (but not necessary UK and other non EU SEPA members) in addition there are standardized interfaces for 3rd parties companies to link up with SEPA and/or you bank account which do technically allow companies to innovate on improvements. Practically this often runs into issues, 1) from a consumer POV in many (not all) EU countries the state of card payment is just fine and convenient features like easy bill sharing many people either don't need or don't know what they miss out on. 2) many issues are on the (physical) shop side, but you need to provide things users can use and having multiple systems in parallel is often not very practical, 3) at the same time without shops allowing new systems customer don't have any reason to adapt such new systems anyway all of this likely will improve quite a bit relatively soon
- tonfa 1y ago
  Also digital euro is targeting payment systems (https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...)
- jowea 1y ago
  From the comments it seems it supports direct person to person transfers, but how easy is it to use it for payments? Can you use SEPA to pay for your groceries? Or buy something on the Internet?
vimy 1y ago
EU is building Wero to replace all the national payment systems. It uses sepa under the hood. https://wero-wallet.eu/ https://wero-wallet.eu/
dathinab 1y ago
> discriminating against Mastercard and Visa how can you discriminate against a duopoly ;) > It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, (you seem to be drifting into the server center topic but I will take "this space" as payment processing) It's complicated, EU has many payment standards which 1) are required between banks, and 2) theoretically allow integration with new payment processing methods needing only the end-users agreement not the banks. So you can relatively easily send money between people (and to company accounts, too) without touching visa/mastercard at all (how easy that "relative part" does still vary a lot tho. (Also if you are willing to pay a fixed up price (commonly free or 15ct) also fast, like in seconds). At the same time when it comes to 1) banking cards, 2) payment terminals, pretty much everything is build on Mastercard/Visa (where I live mostly Visa). Like there is no competition when it comes to the secure chips this systems use. (But then both PayPall and pretty much all of China have kinda shown you don't really need them as long as you have internet, which payment terminal often need to for any non very small payment amounts). Also because people are so used to a well working reasonable secure card payment system many tries to push for app based alternatives kinda fail, sure due to their dominant position in online shopping Paypal is still a thing, but also commonly relegate to at most one of multiple options in online shopping. Just to be clear the exact dynamics differ _vastly_ between country in the EU. Any I really don't like the generic pay in rates functionality, it's a trap which really can fuck up peoples life (similar to using the dipso all the time/not getting out of it, or large credit boundary or however it's called for credit cards; to be honest dispo tends to be worse tho).
inerte 1y ago
"interest free" deserves quotes. It appears to be so because the installments have the same value but in reality it's priced in the overall length vs price. The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.

vitorgrs 1y ago

Just a reminder that Google Pay supports Pix! You can pay using Pix with QR Code, keys or just NFC with it. There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay...

diego_moita 1y ago
> There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay... No surprise. 1. Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal. 2. If Apple were to implement it they wouldn't be able to get away with the huge margins they charge.
- rescbr 1y ago
  > Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal. Apple has 9% market share in Brazil. This is not irrelevant. It’s not a luxury thing for millionaires, but rather a status symbol for the middle class. There’s this whole market of iPhone leasing plans where you get a new phone whenever Apple releases a new one, banks offering 21x installment payment plans to purchase iPhones, and a vibrant secondhand and refurbished market. This 9% segment of the population can’t be ignored, specially considering the income inequality in the Brazilian society. They might not have a high credit card limit or due to lack of financial literacy, they want to avoid using credit cards, so they might prefer to use debit and PIX for daily transactions.
  - igortg 1y ago
    How much of these 9% uses Apple Pay? My bet it's just a small part. People still use Pix and physical Credit/Debit Cards. Google Pay/Apple Pay are far behind.
    - rescbr 1y ago
      Considering all the major banks credit cards are able to be added to Apple Pay's wallet, my educated guess is if a person has an iPhone and a credit card, they are using it through Apple Pay most of the time. Even meal voucher cards are now able to be added to Apple Pay's wallet. I don't have statistics readily available, but you can search for CADE's (Brazilian fair trade regulator) inquiry 08700.002893/2025-17 on Apple's refusal to support Pix on Apple Pay and comb through the documents.

deleted 1y ago

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ojosilva 1y ago

This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments and subscriptions), but preferred by merchants and consumers alike. Obviously credit cards give you credit, if that's what you want/need, maybe a postponement until your monthly statement is closed, or chargebacks and maybe insurance, but CCs should be an exception, not the norm they are now, with a bunch of embedded costs we all pay for, one way or another.

ek750 1y ago
agreed. Additionally it may reduce the power of fringe groups from pressuring private companies who are doing legal business. The recent Steam and itch.io takedowns due to collective shout come to mind.
rcruzeiro 1y ago
Systems like these are very common in Europe. Here in Norway, you can pay for almost anything, anywhere with Vipps. It works very similarly to Brazilian Pix. Another system I have used in the past is the Portuguese MBWay which although similar to Pix and Vipps, doesn’t seem to be as widely adopted as the former.
- closewith 1y ago
  Vipps and MBPay are a pale shadow of Pix. No aliases, no mandatory participation, much lower merchant fees, and instant settlement not dependent on the merchant bank.
  - Tmpod 1y ago
    MBWAY has card aliases, I believe it had been a thing since the 90s (previously know as MBNET).
- 1y ago

diego_moita 1y ago

I believe the greatest story behind Brazil's Pix, India's UPI and Kenya's Mpesa is the emergence of a lot new forms of money. We will have strong national currencies supported by these payment systems, destroying Visa and Mastercard and hurting PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. These systems have a lot more potential than most people imagine (e.g.: micro lending , even for illiterate people). We will have "gangster money", a.k.a. crypto currencies, to sustain illegal activities. There is no other use case for crypto, only this. And we will probably have "economic blocs" money (e.g.: whatever thing the BRICS come up with). In this scenario I'd hope for a big change in the international payments system. The dollar will not have one rival, will have many. I hope it dies by a thousand cuts.

hshdhdhj4444 1y ago
One of the key benefits of India’s UPI is that it’s removed the middle man when it comes to benefits to the poor which has drastically reduced corruption and ensured the money goes to the people it’s supposed to. The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms, but in reality, it’s the actual improvement in life driven significantly by the adoption of UPI that’s played the biggest role.
- gruez 1y ago
  >The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms Examples? The only discussion of "religious terms" around Indian coverage by western media is about how the ruling party BJP panders to "Hindu nationalism", which can be simultaneously true alongside competent leadership.
- mkbkn 1y ago
  How has UPI reduced corruption? Please enlighten me.
orbisvicis 1y ago
> There is no other use case for crypto, only this. I'm sorry but last few months have done nothing if not demonstrate the need for crypto currency, aka digital cash. It may not be ready, but it is likely the only path forward. In the meantime Monero is relatively stable, sufficiently anonymous, and has comparatively low transaction fees. The monopoly of existing payment processors cannot continue. They have a stranglehold on fees and issue cards that promote economically harmful activities. They and contactless payment processors sell your data. And now they control what you can and can't purchase. Enter national digital currencies such as as the proposed CBDC. Fear-mongering sites making such outlandish claims [1]. So I do a bit of research, and find [2]... wait, what? "In addition, it [full anonymity] would make it virtually impossible to limit the use of the digital euro as a form of investment – a limitation that is essential from a financial stability perspective." Suddenly I trust [3] so much less. The technical controls required to implement inventory limits would just as easily enable expiration dates and automatic devaluation, or whatever overreach governments deem necessary down their slippery slope. 1. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-an-expiration-date-how-cbdcs-could-borrow-a-radical-idea/ https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a... 2. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-an-expiration-date-how-cbdcs-could-borrow-a-radical-idea/ https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a... 3. https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-for-digital-money-to-eliminate-cash/ https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-f... Where does Pix fall in this spectrum?

atbpaca 1y ago

In a sense, Trump's rant against Pix is promoting it to the world. Moreover, some stores in Portugal and more recently France are accepting Pix as form of payment.

jowea 1y ago
Those are for the benefit of Brazilian tourists I guess?
- guhcampos 1y ago
  Generally, yes. You need an account in some Brazilian bank to use PIX, so these are likely Brazilian nationals living abroad and accepting payments directly to their Brazilian accounts.
bgnn 1y ago
It's not a small population. There's estimated 40k Brazilians in the Netherlands for example, most of them illegal. They need a payment system which doesn't require a European bank account. PS: I don't think anyone is illegal, but the system push them out.

anonymousDan 1y ago

I wonder what the total value to the Brazilian economy is to keep Visa/MasterCard's cut of so many transactions in Brazil instead of being siphoned offshore.

crossroadsguy 1y ago
It's not just that. It's also about - one fine day a nation waking up to Visa/MC "disconnecting" that nation. Why? Well, maybe the mothership nation's leader just felt like it. Who the hell knows. The point is - these nations don't want to find that out. Almost all of these countries have faced such sanctions, blocking, control etc in one way or the other at some point.

klysm 1y ago

Visa and MasterCard are shaking in their boots and will scratch and bite on their way down to kill anything like this in the US.

vitorbaptistaa 1y ago
This has already started with Trump's tariffs: https://valorinternational.globo.com/foreign-affairs/news/2025/07/16/us-targets-pix-in-probe-into-brazils-unfair-trade-practices.ghtml https://valorinternational.globo.com/foreign-affairs/news/20... > While the system is not named directly, a document from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) says that “Brazil also appears to engage in a number of unfair practices with respect to electronic payment services, including but not limited to advantaging its government-developed electronic payment services.” I'd be surprised if there aren't big tech/credit card companies lobbying behind this.
- vitorgrs 1y ago
  Earlier this week, Brazil VP Geraldo Alckmin (who is also a Development, Industry, Trade and Services Minister) meet to talk about tariffs with several big tech executives and also a "big tech" lobbyist. Worth to point out that.... Visa was there. - Igor Luna, Legal Consultant of the Brazilian Digital Economy Chamber - Nuno Lopes Alves, General Director of Visa - Gustavo Lage Noman, Vice President of Government Affairs at Visa - Márcia Miya, Government Affairs Manager at Apple - Gustavo Dias, Head of Legal and Institutional Relations Latin America - Yana Dumaresq, Director of Public Policy at Meta - Daniel Arbix, Legal Director at Google Igor Luna were doing heavy lobby against social network regulation that happened.

cynicalpeace 1y ago

When I first moved to LatAm, the cashiers always asked how many "cuotas" I wanted to pay. I was initially confused and realized it meant I could take a (interest free?) loan to pay for my purchases in installments. I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA. Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.

joseda-hg 1y ago
It really will depend on the country If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans) It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card)) Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees
d0100 1y ago
It's common because people want goods but don't have the money to buy it Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments
owebmaster 1y ago
People can't save so they need to pay with credit to buy things they want, even it that means paying 2x the original price.
rescbr 1y ago
It's interest-free for the customer because the interest was already bundled in the good's price. It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing. There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance. This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.

zanellato19 1y ago

This is such good news. The amount of value extracted of the brazillian people from outlandish interest rates from credit cards is unbelievable and this will free all of us from it.

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Pix is great now - one concern is that it needs to be nimble enough to evolve as the country does. If it is still meeting the needs of Brazil & Brazilians in 10+ years time that will be an even greater triumph. Meanwhile to the Brazilian people, congratulations & enjoy being world leaders in payments!

drumnerd 1y ago

Fuck trump, the Epstein buddy Ave Brasil

childintime 1y ago

It's time for all of us that travel to have 2 pins: the regular one, and a second one that notifies the issuer that the transaction happens at gunpoint, in which case the amount that can be taken is drastically reduced.

beng-nl 1y ago
This is called a duress pin and is implemented in alarm systems.

andrewjl 1y ago

On a technical level are there big differences between Pix and FedNow[0]? Besides this upcoming installment feature. [0] https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow