Comment by pimterry

17 days ago

> “Breakup” seems a bit exaggerated considering the % of payment volume which might switch to the new system.

Brazil introduced Pix in 2019, it's now the most used payment method for all transactions nationwide, ahead of both cards & cash.

India introduced UPI in 2016, it now handles >80% of digital payments there, and handles more transactions a day than Visa does worldwide.

It's totally plausible to me that a similar replacement could overtake cards completely within a decade. The lack of cross-border support means "Pay with Bizum" is a niche feature that's only useful in Spain, but if "Pay with Wero" becomes an instant & ~free payment method that works for hundreds of millions of users then it's a very different ballgame.

And also much of East and Southeast Asia as well: AliPay (CN), Kakao (KR), PayPay (JP), JKO (TW), GrabPay (SG/MY), QRIS (ID), etc. with various interop compatibility between them. If you build it they will come.

> Brazil introduced Pix in 2019, it's now the most used payment method for all transactions nationwide, ahead of both cards & cash.

Is that by volume of transactions or total amount, or both?

Cash transactions can of course only be estimated for this statement.

  • It took over cash in 2024 by number of transactions. And yes, cash is estimated.

    I imagine bank transfers are still the largest payment method by value. Pix is taking over bank transfers, but companies have very few reasons to migrate.