Comment by nottorp
7 months ago
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?
7 months ago
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?
The devil in the details. Pix allows you to give your account nb, but also email or phone to locate. Vendors can produce a QR code which embeds the destinator as well as the amount to be paid. Pix feels quicker than IBAN to IBAN. Very importantly, Pix is available even without a bank account. Opening a bank account is quite challenging and expensive for non-residents, among others.
> Pix is available even without a bank account
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.
Netherlands has implemented Tikkie on top of iDEAL, which is essentially the same outcome. You link your bank account, send a payment request URL or put up a QR if you're a business. That's good UX, and it's getting better adoption.
That's definitely closer to Pix, but the advantage of Pix is because since the Brazillian Central Bank forced adoption for almost every player (not just banks, but even things like PagSeguro that is the Brazil equivalent of PayPal), so you can just assume that everyone has a Pix account already.
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.
And iDeal is being expanded across Europe; the technology is now owned by the European Payments Industry and rebranded as Wero, which will replace iDeal in the Netherlands, Giropay in Germany, Paylib in France, and Payconiq in Belgium and Luxembourg.
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.
Portugal the same. I heard there's an initiative to unify all national Tikkies/Mbways/Pixes and make them inter-compatible.
As a Brazillian living in Europe, they're similar in concept but there are huge differences in the implementation. If I remember correctly IBAN-to-IBAN can take up to 2 days to process, Pix has a p99 of 10 seconds if I remember correctly (I worked in the implementation of Pix in one of the major digital banks in Brazil).
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).
> IBAN-to-IBAN can take up to 2 days to process
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.
> Apparently someone decided they'll fix the existing system instead of creating a whole new system with a fancy name.
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.
Is this transaction time down to the two banks using different systems? I do vaguely recall that banks exchange a day's worth of transactions in nightly batches. Whereas a centralized system means everyone uses the same.
I wouldn't object to standardized banking software in that case.
Yep, that's the whole point. Pix transactions are designed to be instantly settled, even across different banks. The central government bank enforces this, as well as other rules (e.g. Pix between two individuals can't have fees, etc).
2 days is (almost) a thing of a past considering the implementation deadline for EU member states - https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...
„IBAN-to-IBAN can take up to 2 days to process“
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.
In Europe at least Switzerland instant IBAN to IBAN costs money. This is because they want to protect the similar payment service called TWINT which charges a high percentage to vendors and is owned by a group of banks. The conflict of interest is a huge issue.
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.
Instant IBAN to IBAN in Switzerland doesn't inherently cost money, the cost is just a cash grab by the banks.
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.
According to the regulations, https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa... , equality of charges must be implemented before 9 January 2025 for member states and before 9 January 2027 for non-member states. And SEPA is a euro only. So conversion fees will apply for Switzerland.
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.
Also almost identical to Indian UPI.