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I got in this thread with the expectation of seeing a comment like yours, so thank you for that. I think what worries the U.S. more is the likelihood of Pix sp

I got in this thread with the expectation of seeing a comment like yours, so thank you for that. I think what worries the U.S. more is the likelihood of Pix spreading around the world. It’s such a great public program that I believe many countries will eventually adopt it, or adopt some version of it. In fact, AFAIK some places already have it, like Thailand and Malaysia. Consumers like it because it is widely available and free, companies like it doubly so, and even governments like it because it helps to combat tax evasion and fraud. Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. But I believe even that will change in the future, to the benefit of Pix-like systems.

kwanbix 1y ago
In Argentina we have Mercado Pago which is basically this.
- mzitelli 1y ago
  It is not the same. Mercado Pago is a product from Mercado Livre and charges at least 0.8% per transaction.
  - kwanbix 1y ago
    If you transfer between accounts is free.
  - paulsen 1y ago
    Transfers from a bank to another and between banks and/or digital wallets (like MercadoPago) are free and almost 99% of time instant in Argentina The transfer system is like that due to government regulation
mzitelli 1y ago
> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank It will not take long. Banks are already offering products with credit on top of the Pix. Furthermore, contactless Pix is now available in Android phones. If we look from the financial and usability aspects, Pix will continue eating the credit card market share. I didn't know Thailand and Malaysia had similar systems, though. I hope the example spreads! Creating a competitive infrastructure and product is an interesting way to deal with monopolies.
- Ayesh 1y ago
  About half of the world population has access to some sort of QR based payment system nowadays. India has UPI, China has Ali and Wechat pay. Almost everyone in these two countries can go weeks without having to use cash. In South East Asia, Vietnam is leading QR payments. I live in Ha Noi, and I only carry VND equivalent of $15-20 with me, and it sits in the wallet for ages. Everything from gas stations to restaurants to street vendors to even paying taxes, you do it from a QR code. There is no wallet, the money is directly debited from the account. Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia have similar systems. In Indonesia, a couple of "super apps" had their own wallets, but merged with QRIS a few years back, a lot of Indonesian people can now pay with QR codes, even across wallets and bank accounts. South America and Asia has already started to replace card payments with the QR payments. Rightfully so.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    Europe (41 countries) has instant SEPA.
    - mzitelli 1y ago
      SEPA is a banking infrastructure layer and it is not consumer focused. Also, only ~60% of European banks adopted it. While Pix was mandatory for all banks to adopt and 80% of Brazilian population already used it.
      - pqs 1y ago
        In Spain we have Bizum. You can send money to any phone number. It's instand and, as I understand, it works on top of SEPA.
        dakiol 1y ago
        Never understood why it’s tied to a phone number. I don’t like to leak mine just for silly payments.
FpUser 1y ago
>" the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank" I am not sure it is a better proposition if one looks at staggering amounts of debt caused by credit cards
- one-note 1y ago
  You don’t want to spend money you don’t have? Congrats, your credit score is trash and now you can’t rent a house (let alone buy).
  - hn_acc1 1y ago
    Do you mean via credit cards, or on the whole, including a mortgage? We have a mortgage, but have made all but 1 or 2 credit card payments in 20+ years - we forgot to pay a $50 bill once, IIRC. Outside of the mortgage, we've never spent money that wasn't already in our bank account - not even "it's coming in our next paycheck". Our credit scores are fine.
    - one-note 1y ago
      I mean just credit cards generally. You have to play the MasterCard/Visa game or else lenders won’t rent to you. I’ve been denied many rental properties I could very easily afford because “oh someone else applied and their credit score was over 800”
  - adfasofdjo 1y ago
    Only in the US, building Credit isn't as important in other countries AFAIK.
  - seattle_spring 1y ago
    You're not forced to use credit cards irresponsibility to benefit from the credit score boost they provide.
    - one-note 1y ago
55555 1y ago
I am in Thailand. Fraud is a much smaller issue because it’s a push-based system. You cannot withdrawal from someone else’s account just by knowing the number, unlike with credit cards.
- Loughla 1y ago
  What about fighting charges? In the US, if I flag a charge on my credit card it's immediately cancelled and they deal with it. How does that work?
  - lmz 1y ago
    Not well is my guess. You best treat it as a cash equivalent, because it's a push method.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - hahn-kev 1y ago
    They way it works I don't receive a charge like you do with visa, the merchant presents a code, you scan it when your bank app and then the bank app asks if you want to send # of money to [merchant name], if you don't want to pay it then you don't approve the transfer in your app on your phone. However after the fact there's less options, I've never gone through
    - cornholio 1y ago
      Bundling consumer protection with the payment system was always a bad idea. Payments need to be instantaneous and free. The returns/refunds can be handled offline by a mutually agreed facilitator that does not have a monopoly on the payment system. You can also have a legal mandate that all internet purchase, for example, should employ such a service, that charges a market fee and is then liable for making fair decisions.
      - mirzap 1y ago
AdieuToLogic 1y ago
> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. This is the entire value proposition of credit cards and is what undergirds the issuer (bank) justification for interest rates assessed. To be able to defer card-holder immediate payment for some period of time and/or to put the onus of proof-of-purchase on the merchant instead of the card holder. The last point is non-trivial when considering debit or debit-like networks result in funds being transferred during settlement (often performed daily), thus making the customer responsible for proving they did not perform the transaction post hoc.
notpushkin 1y ago
> AFAIK some places already have it, like Thailand and Malaysia. Also Vietnam (Napas247), Singapore (PayNow), Philippines (QR Ph), Japan (lots different systems), China (WeChat/Alipay, I think?), Russia (SBP), Belarus (ERIP, in a sense), and the whole of EU (SEPA transfers). One problem is, most of them don’t really work for you if you’re a foreigner. Moreta (YC S24) is doing something in SEA, and I’ve seen another service for visitors in India, but I think exchange rates wouldn’t be too good (compared to something like Wise, maybe on par with regular banks though). https://moretapay.com/ https://moretapay.com/, https://ale.sh/r/moreta https://ale.sh/r/moreta (affiliate link) https://wise.com/ https://wise.com/, https://ale.sh/r/wise https://ale.sh/r/wise (affiliate link)
- norman784 1y ago
  The EU is also now pushing WERO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
  - throwaway473825 1y ago
    That's a commercial service backed by some European banks. It's not at all comparable with a non-profit service like Brazil's Pix. The closest EU equivalent would probably be the planned digital euro, but the banks are fighting tooth and nail to prevent that.
    - ta12653421 1y ago
      Not only that - ECB, EU Comission / Council also supporting it. Though, most of the shares belong to major EU banks, yes.
  - Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    Isn't that (and its predecessor iDEAL) basically a layer on top of SEPA transfers though? (not that that's a bad thing)
    - sofixa 1y ago
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Fairly sure QR code based payment systems are pretty common outside of the western world since China popularized it. You cam even hook your credit card up to something like Alipay and get by with minimal extra fees.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
michaelmior 1y ago
> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. Rewards is another big one and the reason I personally prefer to use credit cards where possible.
- whatevaa 1y ago
  Rewards exist because credit card transaction fees to merchants are very high, though. Europe put a limit on those fees and no credit card rewards exist here.
  - michaelmior 1y ago
    Sure, but for those of us in North America, it's still a draw. That said, I can see that the consumer would potentially be better off if fees went down, prices dropped, and rewards went away. But that's probably not a realistic future.
    - PokestarFan 1y ago
      The unfortunate reality is that even if fees disappeared tomorrow, most merchants would just keep the current price and pocket all the extra money as profit.
  - netfortius 1y ago
    Interesting you're saying that, because my usage model is: US credit cards w/reward points, in Europe. The cards I use have no currency exchange fees, and very good transaction rates (€ to $), so other than the unavoidable (majority of my money being in the US) ups and downs of value of $ vs € (great up to six months ago, degrading since the arrival of the new admin in the US) I get the best of both worlds, i.e. European lower COL, and rewards and services (e.g. car rentals and insurance, flights, hotels, etc.) from use of US credit cards.
john01dav 1y ago
> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. But I believe even that will change in the future, to the benefit of Pix-like systems. Does Pix offer something like credit card rewards? I understand that you ultimately pay for this through fees that make prices slightly higher, but it is still an incentive to use credit cards over other payment methods.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > Does Pix offer something like credit card rewards? I understand that you ultimately pay for this through fees that make prices slightly higher, but it is still an incentive to use credit cards over other payment methods. No, because it's free, there is no high transaction fee to pay for those rewards. And that's ultimately better.
whatagreatboy 1y ago
India has UPI. China has something. It is only a good thing that this should spread everywhere.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
There is UPI too in India, pix also sounds decent! Pardon me but I think pix is open source too which is nice too !
wqaatwt 1y ago
Haven’t the Eurozone and presumably many other places had this for quite some time now? Or is Pi. somehow better than SEPA?
rprend 1y ago
Pix, UPI, etc are nationally silo'd and have little risk of spreading around the world. They took over their respective countries because they were government backed and mandatory. The US has its own version of this: government backed, 24/7 instant settlement payment rails (called FedNow). It released in 2023 but adoption is slow because it's not mandatory. Banks are especially slow to support "Requests for payments", which might compete with card networks for retail purchases. It's the banks, not Visa / Mastercard, that make the most off credit card fees. Visa / Mastercard take .1-.2%, the bank takes ~2%. The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud. Irreversible payment rails are a nightmare for consumers who are used to chargebacks being built in to the payment rail, and banks are skeptical of exposing such rails to consumers because most of the time the banks are required to make good when the customer is defrauded.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  > The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud I'd certainly dispute the former part. Strong, in a subset of cases. But chargebacks are still, ultimately, a he-said-she-said a lot of the time, and it's very easy to find abuses of it. Not to mention, merchants who blanket ban and revoke access to purchases because of even legitimate chargebacks. There's little recourse for that other than arbitration, generally, if that.
- tinaclaussen 1y ago
  The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud. This has nothing to do with instant payment. Lets say $1000 is lost from your checking account due to fraud then is it covered by visa or mastercard? consumer protection there is different. With SEPA or UPI it is irreversible but it is the same like you ACH transfer. If you do a mistake then it is irreversible. Some people here talk about Amex, VISA or mastercard giving free damage insurance on purchase of consumer items like phone etc. That is not consumer protection. That is more like one gets this free insurance for paying yearly fees or maintaining account. Another reason for fraud is the use of magnetic stripe based card readers.
- 1y ago

kwanbix 1y ago

In Argentina we have Mercado Pago which is basically this.

mzitelli 1y ago
It is not the same. Mercado Pago is a product from Mercado Livre and charges at least 0.8% per transaction.
- kwanbix 1y ago
  If you transfer between accounts is free.
- paulsen 1y ago
  Transfers from a bank to another and between banks and/or digital wallets (like MercadoPago) are free and almost 99% of time instant in Argentina The transfer system is like that due to government regulation

mzitelli 1y ago

> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank It will not take long. Banks are already offering products with credit on top of the Pix. Furthermore, contactless Pix is now available in Android phones. If we look from the financial and usability aspects, Pix will continue eating the credit card market share. I didn't know Thailand and Malaysia had similar systems, though. I hope the example spreads! Creating a competitive infrastructure and product is an interesting way to deal with monopolies.

Ayesh 1y ago
About half of the world population has access to some sort of QR based payment system nowadays. India has UPI, China has Ali and Wechat pay. Almost everyone in these two countries can go weeks without having to use cash. In South East Asia, Vietnam is leading QR payments. I live in Ha Noi, and I only carry VND equivalent of $15-20 with me, and it sits in the wallet for ages. Everything from gas stations to restaurants to street vendors to even paying taxes, you do it from a QR code. There is no wallet, the money is directly debited from the account. Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia have similar systems. In Indonesia, a couple of "super apps" had their own wallets, but merged with QRIS a few years back, a lot of Indonesian people can now pay with QR codes, even across wallets and bank accounts. South America and Asia has already started to replace card payments with the QR payments. Rightfully so.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Europe (41 countries) has instant SEPA.
  - mzitelli 1y ago
    SEPA is a banking infrastructure layer and it is not consumer focused. Also, only ~60% of European banks adopted it. While Pix was mandatory for all banks to adopt and 80% of Brazilian population already used it.
    - pqs 1y ago
      In Spain we have Bizum. You can send money to any phone number. It's instand and, as I understand, it works on top of SEPA.
      - dakiol 1y ago
        Never understood why it’s tied to a phone number. I don’t like to leak mine just for silly payments.

FpUser 1y ago

>" the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank" I am not sure it is a better proposition if one looks at staggering amounts of debt caused by credit cards

one-note 1y ago
You don’t want to spend money you don’t have? Congrats, your credit score is trash and now you can’t rent a house (let alone buy).
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  Do you mean via credit cards, or on the whole, including a mortgage? We have a mortgage, but have made all but 1 or 2 credit card payments in 20+ years - we forgot to pay a $50 bill once, IIRC. Outside of the mortgage, we've never spent money that wasn't already in our bank account - not even "it's coming in our next paycheck". Our credit scores are fine.
  - one-note 1y ago
    I mean just credit cards generally. You have to play the MasterCard/Visa game or else lenders won’t rent to you. I’ve been denied many rental properties I could very easily afford because “oh someone else applied and their credit score was over 800”
- adfasofdjo 1y ago
  Only in the US, building Credit isn't as important in other countries AFAIK.
- seattle_spring 1y ago
  You're not forced to use credit cards irresponsibility to benefit from the credit score boost they provide.
  - one-note 1y ago

55555 1y ago

I am in Thailand. Fraud is a much smaller issue because it’s a push-based system. You cannot withdrawal from someone else’s account just by knowing the number, unlike with credit cards.

Loughla 1y ago
What about fighting charges? In the US, if I flag a charge on my credit card it's immediately cancelled and they deal with it. How does that work?
- lmz 1y ago
  Not well is my guess. You best treat it as a cash equivalent, because it's a push method.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- hahn-kev 1y ago
  They way it works I don't receive a charge like you do with visa, the merchant presents a code, you scan it when your bank app and then the bank app asks if you want to send # of money to [merchant name], if you don't want to pay it then you don't approve the transfer in your app on your phone. However after the fact there's less options, I've never gone through
  - cornholio 1y ago
    Bundling consumer protection with the payment system was always a bad idea. Payments need to be instantaneous and free. The returns/refunds can be handled offline by a mutually agreed facilitator that does not have a monopoly on the payment system. You can also have a legal mandate that all internet purchase, for example, should employ such a service, that charges a market fee and is then liable for making fair decisions.
    - mirzap 1y ago

AdieuToLogic 1y ago

> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. This is the entire value proposition of credit cards and is what undergirds the issuer (bank) justification for interest rates assessed. To be able to defer card-holder immediate payment for some period of time and/or to put the onus of proof-of-purchase on the merchant instead of the card holder. The last point is non-trivial when considering debit or debit-like networks result in funds being transferred during settlement (often performed daily), thus making the customer responsible for proving they did not perform the transaction post hoc.

notpushkin 1y ago

> AFAIK some places already have it, like Thailand and Malaysia. Also Vietnam (Napas247), Singapore (PayNow), Philippines (QR Ph), Japan (lots different systems), China (WeChat/Alipay, I think?), Russia (SBP), Belarus (ERIP, in a sense), and the whole of EU (SEPA transfers). One problem is, most of them don’t really work for you if you’re a foreigner. Moreta (YC S24) is doing something in SEA, and I’ve seen another service for visitors in India, but I think exchange rates wouldn’t be too good (compared to something like Wise, maybe on par with regular banks though). https://moretapay.com/ https://moretapay.com/, https://ale.sh/r/moreta https://ale.sh/r/moreta (affiliate link) https://wise.com/ https://wise.com/, https://ale.sh/r/wise https://ale.sh/r/wise (affiliate link)

norman784 1y ago
The EU is also now pushing WERO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero_(payment)
- throwaway473825 1y ago
  That's a commercial service backed by some European banks. It's not at all comparable with a non-profit service like Brazil's Pix. The closest EU equivalent would probably be the planned digital euro, but the banks are fighting tooth and nail to prevent that.
  - ta12653421 1y ago
    Not only that - ECB, EU Comission / Council also supporting it. Though, most of the shares belong to major EU banks, yes.
- Cthulhu_ 1y ago
  Isn't that (and its predecessor iDEAL) basically a layer on top of SEPA transfers though? (not that that's a bad thing)
  - sofixa 1y ago

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

Fairly sure QR code based payment systems are pretty common outside of the western world since China popularized it. You cam even hook your credit card up to something like Alipay and get by with minimal extra fees.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

michaelmior 1y ago

whatevaa 1y ago
Rewards exist because credit card transaction fees to merchants are very high, though. Europe put a limit on those fees and no credit card rewards exist here.
- michaelmior 1y ago
  Sure, but for those of us in North America, it's still a draw. That said, I can see that the consumer would potentially be better off if fees went down, prices dropped, and rewards went away. But that's probably not a realistic future.
  - PokestarFan 1y ago
    The unfortunate reality is that even if fees disappeared tomorrow, most merchants would just keep the current price and pocket all the extra money as profit.
- netfortius 1y ago
  Interesting you're saying that, because my usage model is: US credit cards w/reward points, in Europe. The cards I use have no currency exchange fees, and very good transaction rates (€ to $), so other than the unavoidable (majority of my money being in the US) ups and downs of value of $ vs € (great up to six months ago, degrading since the arrival of the new admin in the US) I get the best of both worlds, i.e. European lower COL, and rewards and services (e.g. car rentals and insurance, flights, hotels, etc.) from use of US credit cards.

john01dav 1y ago

> Right now, the only thing that makes credit cards a better proposition is being able to pay without having enough money in the bank, and maybe enjoying greater protection from fraudulent merchants. But I believe even that will change in the future, to the benefit of Pix-like systems. Does Pix offer something like credit card rewards? I understand that you ultimately pay for this through fees that make prices slightly higher, but it is still an incentive to use credit cards over other payment methods.

sofixa 1y ago
> Does Pix offer something like credit card rewards? I understand that you ultimately pay for this through fees that make prices slightly higher, but it is still an incentive to use credit cards over other payment methods. No, because it's free, there is no high transaction fee to pay for those rewards. And that's ultimately better.

whatagreatboy 1y ago

India has UPI. China has something. It is only a good thing that this should spread everywhere.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago

There is UPI too in India, pix also sounds decent! Pardon me but I think pix is open source too which is nice too !

wqaatwt 1y ago

Haven’t the Eurozone and presumably many other places had this for quite some time now? Or is Pi. somehow better than SEPA?

rprend 1y ago

Pix, UPI, etc are nationally silo'd and have little risk of spreading around the world. They took over their respective countries because they were government backed and mandatory. The US has its own version of this: government backed, 24/7 instant settlement payment rails (called FedNow). It released in 2023 but adoption is slow because it's not mandatory. Banks are especially slow to support "Requests for payments", which might compete with card networks for retail purchases. It's the banks, not Visa / Mastercard, that make the most off credit card fees. Visa / Mastercard take .1-.2%, the bank takes ~2%. The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud. Irreversible payment rails are a nightmare for consumers who are used to chargebacks being built in to the payment rail, and banks are skeptical of exposing such rails to consumers because most of the time the banks are required to make good when the customer is defrauded.

FireBeyond 1y ago
> The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud I'd certainly dispute the former part. Strong, in a subset of cases. But chargebacks are still, ultimately, a he-said-she-said a lot of the time, and it's very easy to find abuses of it. Not to mention, merchants who blanket ban and revoke access to purchases because of even legitimate chargebacks. There's little recourse for that other than arbitration, generally, if that.
tinaclaussen 1y ago
The other unique bit about the US is we have uniquely strong consumer protection laws and a uniquely large amount of fraud. This has nothing to do with instant payment. Lets say $1000 is lost from your checking account due to fraud then is it covered by visa or mastercard? consumer protection there is different. With SEPA or UPI it is irreversible but it is the same like you ACH transfer. If you do a mistake then it is irreversible. Some people here talk about Amex, VISA or mastercard giving free damage insurance on purchase of consumer items like phone etc. That is not consumer protection. That is more like one gets this free insurance for paying yearly fees or maintaining account. Another reason for fraud is the use of magnetic stripe based card readers.
1y ago