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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
by 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 agoagreed. 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 agoSystems 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 agoVipps 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 agoMBWAY has card aliases, I believe it had been a thing since the 90s (previously know as MBNET).
- em500 1y agoThe problem is that most European schemes are country specific. As soon as you cross the border even to another European country, your options are pretty much cash or Visa/MasterCard.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- riffraff 1y agoYeah, the ECB just published[0] the latest report on the digital euro which is supposed to solve this across the eurozone and seems potentially quite cool, but it'll be years before it's reality. 0: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ecb.deprp202507.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ec...
- BurningFrog 1y agoThere is nothing for the Euro zone?
- beng-nl 1y agoThere are maestro cards, bank cards that work very conveniently including with nfc, including with Apple Pay. Given that Apple Pay supports multiple kinds of cards.. my phone probably works almost anywhere..
- em500 1y agoMaestro is owned by Mastercard (and are now being phased out for explicitly Mastercard branded cards). So like I said, cross border options are basically cash or Visa/Mastercard.
- usrnm 1y agoSame as pix then?
- guhcampos 1y agoWe also have the same problem: technically, PIX is only inside our borders. The thing is our borders are huge! In practice, people have started to accept it in Portugal, Argentina, Uruguai and some other places where people tend to have accounts both in their countries of residence and Brazil.
- mrisoli 1y agoInterestingly, I've spotted a few places in Portugal already accepting Pix as a form of payment, catering to a large demographic of Brazilian immigrants and tourists.
- renrutal 1y agoThere is no PIX in Portugal, or places other than Brazil. What they have there is a Brazilian person receiving payments from another Brazilian person, only through Brazilian accounts, all happening remotely in Brazil(at least for now)
- marcosdumay 1y agoWhat they have is a payment gateway that integrates the Portuguese and Brazilian payments by doing a transfer at each side. It's the same thing as buying stuff from China with PIX, but the gateway is more hidden from the Portuguese accounts.
- jowea 1y agoThere has been some talk of actually internationalising Pix, but from what I understand, those uses that exist now outside of Brazil are a kludge for the benefit of Brazilian tourists.
- Tmpod 1y agoI don't think I know a single person that doesn't have MBWAY, but I'm younger than 30, so that might have something to do with it. Even then, everywhere you go, unless they're really small or old places that still don't accept anything other than cash, you can pay with MBWAY, through a QR code or NFC. All POS terminals support that nowadays. You can even add an email address and VAT number and newer terminals automatically skip printing the customer receipt, send it to your email and give the VAT number to the merchant (not entirely sure how that last one works, but it's there).
- xcf_seetan 1y agoNow you know! :)
- lastdong 1y agoInteresting these platforms have existed for so long now (MBWay from 2014 and Pix 2016 if I’m not mistaken). I recall, back when it was launched, explaining it to friends in other countries (ie. UK) how good it was, not only the seamless payment network shared with friends, but also to be able to spin virtual cards with fixed value for online payments, and getting a puzzled reaction, “is that even legal?”
- ivape 1y agoThanks, just learned about this in the states: https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...
- c0wb0yc0d3r 1y agoIt’s a shame that it isn’t used.
- ivape 1y agoI just learned about this. Looks like this system is only available to banks, and they would have no incentive to break the old system by being quick to implement this. If the Federal Reserve provided this directly to individuals, then we'd have a lot of new payment apps that bypasses the middle network (that would be a paradigm shift).
- jowea 1y agoThis was a whole controversy in Brazil. There was a conspiracy theory that the banks wanted to sabotage the Pix rollout because they would lose out on the fees for using the old transaction systems. In any case, there is a lot more money circulating through the banks now.
- vitorgrs 1y agoThe point about Pix, it's that Central Bank made it mandatory to all banks with over 500k clients if I recall (smaller banks already wanted of course). Besides the branding (which tbh it's a big deal), also made guidelines requirements on how the banks needed to implement. Exactly so they couldn't hide or made it worse to use.
- ianburrell 1y agoIt is brand new, released in 2023. It is a backend protocol, it requires every bank to implement the protocol. And there are some big changes compared to ACH, like having to present requests to the user. Or how to deal with reversals.
- brainwad 1y agoCredit cards give me cashback, worldwide acceptance and peace of mind. The country I live in, Switzerland, has a very widely accepted QR-based payment system... but credit cards (in mobile wallets) are more convenient, safer, faster. The only time I use the QR codes is when a merchant doesn't have a card terminal.
- closewith 1y ago> Credit cards give me cashback, worldwide acceptance and peace of mind. That's because you (and everyone else in Switzerland, even those paying cash) is eating a 2-3% merchant fee markup. In the civilised world like the EU, where credit card interchange fees are capped of 0.3%, those cashback benefits (which is, again, your money you've just paid) don't exist. > worldwide acceptance For now, at a huge economy-wide cost. That skimmed 2-3% is what Trump is trying to protect. > peace of mind That's also country-dependent. In many countries, credit card transactions have no additional protections and chargebacks aren't the magic bullet they are in some. > more convenient, safer, faster. Pix is more convenient, safer (much, much safer and lower risk of fraud), and faster than credit cards. Cheaper too.
- brainwad 1y agoSwitzerland has interchange fees of 0.4% for consumer credit cards (by contactless, only slightly higher by chip+pin): https://www.visaeurope.ch/content/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PDF/fees-and-interchange/july-2023/switzerland-interchange-fees-jul-23.pdf https://www.visaeurope.ch/content/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unite..., https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/eu/europe-lfi/europeaninterchange/pdfs/48switzerland.pdf https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/.... And yet banks offer 0.33% cashback cards: https://certo-card.ch/one https://certo-card.ch/one. And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway; if anything businesses should charge surcharges for accepting cash, not the other way around, and given the social constraint of no surcharges, cashback is a fair mechanism to reward efficient payment methods.
- closewith 1y ago
- omega___ 1y agoPoland has the fantastic BLIK system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik Used country-wide, it's popular enough that global stores allow using it, like AliExpress or Steam.
- dandellion 1y agoIs it only available in Polish złoty for Polish citizens? Or could I, from a different EU country, open an account and use it to pay for games on Steam? My guess would be no, but it's worth asking.
- omega___ 1y agoIt's supported by polish banks for PLN accounts, but I don't think there's a requirement to be a citizen to open an account. I know Revolut also allows using it, if you create a PLN account in it.
- pzmarzly 1y agoRevolut will only offer BLIK if your address is in Poland, it's not enough to just open a PLN subaccount. Same with Wero, it is only shown for customers in Germany and France IIRC. I have no idea why they did it like that, the backend clearly supports them all.
- 0rzech 1y agoPSP S.A. is expanding abroad, so perhaps BLIK will be available in more countries in some time: "In September, the first BLIK transaction was made in Slovakia, and BLIK Romania S.A. received authorization from the National Bank of Romania to operate in the country. In November, the Polish Payments Standard transformed into a joint stock company, to support the execution of its strategic goals." [1] [2] BLIK has one ugly caveat, though: it has no chargeback procedure. [1] Year 2024. [2] https://www.blik.com/en/about-us#id-15ce9a61-2597-11f0-8657-42010a000202 https://www.blik.com/en/about-us#id-15ce9a61-2597-11f0-8657-...
- 1y ago
- voxleone 1y agoIt may be good, but what does the Brazilian law say[0]? In 2021, Brazil enacted Law No. 14.063, which governs the digitalization of public services. Its Article 16 is clear: “Information and communication systems developed exclusively by the public administration shall be governed by open-source licenses, allowing their unrestricted use, copying, modification, and distribution by all public agencies and entities.” In short, software developed solely by the public sector—funded with taxpayer money and intended to serve the public interest—must be made available under an open-source license. Pix is exposed to a legal instrument called 'Mandado de Segurança'. I have written about it: https://d1gesto.blogspot.com/2025/06/brazils-pix-system-faces-legal-risk-for.html https://d1gesto.blogspot.com/2025/06/brazils-pix-system-face... [0] https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servicos-digitais/software-publico https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servic...
- jt2190 1y agoHaving an entity that’s sorta kinda government (I assume that the Brazilian Federal Bank is somewhat independent) develop and run Pix brings an interesting set of problems with it, including how it should be regulated and by whom. Open sourcing the platform’s software is only one form of audit/refulation. So maybe the source is secure and maybe another entity could run it but could another entity participate in the Pix network or would they have to establish their own separate one?
- voxleone 1y ago>>So maybe the source is secure and maybe another entity could run it but could another entity participate in the Pix network or would they have to establish their own separate one? MInd you, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) does have administrative autonomy. But under Brazilian law, it still counts as part of the public administration when it comes to digital systems developed using public funds. So the legal issue isn’t about how “independent” the BCB is — it's about the origin of the software and who paid for its development. If Pix was created exclusively by a government entity, Law 14.063/2021, Article 16 requires it to be released under an open-source license. That’s the core of my point — a legal compliance issue, not a technical or governance judgment. As for your broader question: yes, open-sourcing the platform wouldn’t necessarily mean other entities could plug into Pix directly. Participation in the network still depends on BCB regulations, trust, compliance layers, and access controls. Open code is transparency, not necessarily interoperability. But in a system as critical as Pix, open code would at least allow independent auditing, public scrutiny, and possibly innovation through forks or parallel implementations — even if those don’t run on the live network. So I agree — it’s a multi-layered governance issue. But transparency of publicly funded code is a foundational first step. That’s what the law mandates — and what hasn’t yet been fulfilled.
- em500 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. I'm not familiar with Pix or UPI, so out of curiosity, how are they better than Alipay/WeChat Pay (which I am familiar with)?
- bat_sy 1y agoI can answer for UPI. Unlike AliPay/WeeChat, the central agency (NCPI) only maintains the API. Businesses are free to develop apps on top. In India, there are 50s of apps enabling UPI transactions. You are free to download whatever app you prefer unlike AliPay/WeeChat duopoly.
- iury-sza 1y agoSame for PIX. It's a payment protocol. Any fintech can build on top and support it.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jt2190 1y ago> … 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. To spell it out, the merchant pays fees to the payment processor and carries risk (chargebacks, etc) and these costs are included (“embedded”) in the purchase price of whatever you’re buying. Moving to instant pay moves these risks to the purchaser, which is probably not ideal for the merchant because it forces purchasers to be more careful with their spending. New merchants in particular would have to work harder to establish their reputation. Larger merchants would probably start offering credit again. Where “insta pay” shines is for merchants with less credit worthy customers, because it allows them to operate online and in an electronic world. Currently in the U.S. that job is done with cash, but perhaps very soon with privately issued stablecoins. I guess the big question is whether the U.S. government should issue a stablecoin or similar electronic cash-like thing.
- ozgrakkurt 1y agoIt is just better in my experience. You just scan a QR code and pay. Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have. Or to think you are making “points” by spending more money
- gruez 1y ago>It is just better in my experience. >You just scan a QR code and pay. Tap to pay (ie. NFC) with credit cards is as convenient and arguably more convenient than a QR code solution. At the very least you don't have to worry about aiming at the QR code and waiting for it to scan/focus, which is especially important if you're using it on transit systems.
- ozgrakkurt 1y agoStill prefer a debit card for this, credit aspect just hasn’t been of any use to me so far. And I see people getting into problem because of credit cards a lot.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
- jabjq 1y agoThe best instant payment system is cash. It allows the merchant to skip the taxes too. Unbeatable.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoAlso allows the employees to skip paying the business too.
- renrutal 1y agoCash is a hassle. It requires everyone to have change. You need to count the money, the cashier needs to count the money and store it. The line behind you gets longer. The end of day close-out process is longer. Brazilians also generally don't like to walk with cash in their pockets. Only politicians usually do it, but in their underpants. The pros is that cash is analog, no battery, internet connection or digital system needed to process it.
- jowea 1y agoAlso theft/robbery. Not that Pix isn't a risk, being forced to do bank transactions at gunpoint is a thing now, but anyway.
- stefantalpalaru 1y ago[dead]
- sam-cop-vimes 1y agoCash is king - but security is an issue unless you are dealing with small amounts.
- victorbjorklund 1y agoIn sweden we got Swish which is instant payments. But costs money when business use it (but cheaper than credit cards i think)
- mlinhares 1y agoDeveloped countries (like the US) do have these capabilities, there's fed now in the US, but the banks have captured the government apparatus so that the government can't force it to become the default cos they wouldn't be making interest money on the cash they get to hold without instant payments.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoThe second part "but the banks (in Developed countries) have captured the government apparatus" seems to be true mainly of the USA? As SEPA in the EU, and Faster Payments in UK don't seem to fit that. Unless you have other examples outside of the USA, or a different opinion on SEPA?
- weberer 1y agoIn Finland, I have to use Visa everywhere. Banks offer debit cards, but they use the Visa network. Some smaller sellers also accept Mobilepay, but its not very common.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y ago> In Finland, I have to use Visa everywhere Why? Finland is in SEPA.
- weberer 1y agoI have never seen a store offering any payment method called "SEPA". After reading up on it, it just looks like some protocol to do bank transfers between countries, and it requires exchanging IBAN numbers. I do pay rent and some bills via direct bank transfer, but that's it. Its nothing like this Brazilian payment alternative.
- SideburnsOfDoom 1y agoYes, that's correct it's a protocol, it's under the hood. You won't see a SEPA Branding (or "Faster Payments" in the UK). It's for bank transfers between accounts, which could be in the same country, or not. If you do a bank transfer of e.g. a 3-digit sum, and it arrives the same day, that's SEPA. If it's in a few seconds, that's SEPA Instant (1). The grandparent post about "these capabilities" - specifically in comparison to the US FedNow -seems to cover more than just point-of-sale, right? Although that is mentioned in the SEPA Instant use cases. 1) https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-instant-credit-transfer https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...
- kwanbix 1y agoWhile it is a private service by a company called Mercado Libre (which means Free Market), in Argentina we have Mercado Pago (which means Market Pay), has instant payments and it is free for 99% of the people that do P2P transactions. It is free for anyone, meaning, you don't pay to use it. You only need your national document. Of course, after seeing the success, the banks tried to implement MODO, but it was already too late.
- dudus 1y agoMercado Pago is closer to PayPal than PIX. I'd say it's a generation behind Google Pay/Apple Pay.
- guhcampos 1y agoThis. Mercado Pago is also available in Brazil, and it requires you deposit funds in their own account to use. The thing about PIX most people don't get, including Europeans in this thread, is it integrates into whatever is your bank, so you can use your bank's cashing account to pay, no external app or account necessary.
- vitorgrs 1y agoYou can put your credit cards on Mercado Pago and pay with it... But yeah. Before PIX, places were going with PicPay and Mercado Pago world... And Pix just "killed" both overnight lol
- kwanbix 1y agoI use Mercado Pago as my bank account, so I don't need to deposit anything as long as I have money.
- csomar 1y agoMalaysia has duitnow which they recently started making it international. You can buy a coffee in Thailand with a duitnow wallet (ie: BigPay). It is also integrated with AliPay, so you can pay wherever AliPay is accepted (most of China). I honestly think, at this point, they should just drop the bomb; take their currency to the blockchain (stablecoin) and make the wallets fully connectable to the crypto ecosystem. China doesn't seem keen to take a more open role to capital markets, so there is a void there.
- konart 1y agoRussia has had a similar system for some time now.