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Comment by andersonmvd | Hacker News Reader

In Brazil many stores are dropping credit card and allowing only PIX (instant debit transfer) cause it's cheaper for business (0,22% avg transaction fee vs 1%-2% of credit cards - src (pt-only) https://g1.globo.com/economia/pme/noticia/2022/03/23/pix-e-m...).

The President of Brazilian Central Bank recently said that "credit cards will soon cease to exist" src (pt only) https://www.poder360.com.br/economia/campos-neto-diz-que-car...

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This should be hire up. I live in the US but went to visit family in Brazil, and after setting up my PIX payment, I was honestly kinda shocked at how incredible it seemed. It boils down to a very well implemented, super versatile, public Venmo-like system. I'd hazard a guess that startup ideas around leveraging this new infrastructure may be a great idea the moment.

I presume instant payments don't have the chargeback feature of credit card? That is the main benefit I care about credit cards.

PIX does have a chargeback-like mechanism. It was introduced a year later its release though. PIX is actually more than just instant payment, it includes other things like Pix Saque (withdraw) and Pix Troco (change).

Src (pt only) https://www.poder360.com.br/economia/bc-libera-mecanismo-de-... and https://www.in.gov.br/web/dou/-/resolucao-bcb-n-103-de-8-de-...

My guess is charge backs are probably a US/Canada thing. Many countries have credit cards without the protections. It happens to work in the US because there is a credit score system, high volumes and most people play by the rules.

You are right that in practice it's a US/Canada thing, but it's available everywhere. Customers simply don't know about it, banks don't advertise it and if you try to take advantage of it it's very likely you'll stumble upon a clerk who genuinely thinks that "it's impossible". But it is certainly possible and universally available. Consumers should simply know their rights and refuse to be pushed over by banks.

Personally I have made use of "impossible" chargebacks in Romania, Austria, and Germany. Of course the process was obtuse and frustrating compared to the US.

The EU also has charge backs as well. I would have assumed all credit cards would have this as a feature.

How does it work with travellers & tourists then?

Credit card is still common, all good. I've seen an exception though.

If you're in a "tourist destination" area, then no worries, I'm sure they will offer credit card as a payment option to keep you in business, but it's likely to be more expensive than paying using PIX.

When I was in the south of Brazil I used the "iFood" app (biggest food delivery app in Brazil) and I could only pay using PIX. In other regions, other options were available such as credit card.

Even if you need to do a PIX as a traveller, you can simply pay in cash to some person (hotel recepcionist I guess) so they can use their account to pay the PIX for you. Technically this person will scan a QR code and pay using their bank account.

If you want to have a PIX account yourself, at the moment you need to have a bank account in brazil afaik. After having your account, you have to register it using specific types of identifier, for example your mobile phone. Non-brazilian numbers are accepted in the standard, but not all banks accept them for now. It certainly will go over changes. It's a relatively new technology.

> After having your account, you have to register it using specific types of identifier, for example your mobile phone.

AFAIK, you only have to register if you want to receive payments with a short identifier (like your CPF, which is the Brazilian equivalent of the USA's SSN, or your phone number), and even without registering you can receive them using your full bank account number (the registration exists just to map the identifier to the bank account number); you don't need to register to send payments, having a bank account is enough.

Does this require a phone and an internet access?

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