This is funny. Most of the "positive" attributes of the Brasilian Pix that are praised in the article are the same as for IBAN-to-IBAN ("wire") transfers in Europe.
What does that have to do with any ---coins?
What does that have to do with any ---coins?
this may be a big angle, esp. for lots of poor people (which is a thing in brazil), as it gets them secure transfers.
getting cash remits from the gov was/is a huge challenge in india, for example. lots of people qualify but don't have a bank account or card or other basics.
Last time I went to Brazil I remember that at least twice I asked if the person seeling me something would accept Pix in place of cash since I generally don't carry any cash, and they happily accepted even if they didn't advertise this.
This fragmentation of digital payment methods has had a... less than optimal effect on European payment traffic, with a lot of e-commerce going through American payment providers like credit cards (Visa, Mastercard mainly) and Paypal. A lot of internationally operating online outlets have added support for iDeal over time though, so hopefully Wero will be deployed very fast.
This is huge because it allows for all kind of use cases that it is not really possible with IBAN. For example, I just bought 3Dmark to test my new PC in Epic Games store using Pix, and my transaction was authorized almost as fast as if I had used a credit card. People in Brazil use Pix in day-to-day transactions like you would do with physical cash, so Pix also reduces the friction if you just want to start a side hustle (e.g., instead of accepting just cash or going through the trouble of getting a payment terminal, you can accept either cash or Pix and almost everyone is happy).
It's getting there. Some of my transfers are instant now.
Apparently someone decided they'll fix the existing system instead of creating a whole new system with a fancy name.
However, your description of Pix still doesn't explain the ---coin fetish in the original article.
I think the approach created by Pix is probably better to be honest. Yes, I know that some IBAN-to-IBAN is instantaneous, but since this depends on both banks supporting it and also this is not always clear that it is instantaneous (I think at least when I used N26 the way they advertised this feature the wording wasn't clear if it was guarantee that the transfer was instantanous or not).
Pix is not. Everyone in Brazil knows that it is fast, so if you don't get a notification that you received the money there is probably something wrong (it is really easy to forge a receipt showing that you "paid" something). Especially for a country that has lots of issues with scams, it is really important that the system is reliable so people can trust the system.
> However, your description of Pix still doesn't explain the ---coin fetish in the original article.
I wasn't trying to, I didn't even read the article to be honest. I was just trying to clarify why the Pix experience is different from IBAN-to-IBAN, even if in concept they're the same.
I wouldn't object to standardized banking software in that case.
Iirc, it is now legally mandated to perform instant transfers but some banks are slow to implement this feature. I have an account in one of German neobanks, where it’s basically 4 steps: Face ID, click transfer, paste IBAN and enter the name, enter amount, and the recipient gets push notification from their bank within a few seconds.
These middle men are not needed and their fees especially not. If I taxes pay for the SNB which is supposed to guarantee that payments can be made then they should also do that for digital transactions, not only cash.
BEKB offers a free account with free instant transfers. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg offers free instant transfers on their standard paid account.
Outside of Switzerland, instant SEPA transfers are typically free.
There is also another thing in the works based on SEPA instant payments - Wero ( https://wero-wallet.eu/ ) but it will take some time to implement all functionality and roll it out.