Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments?

Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by SwiftyBug on Monday May 16, 2022 @05:51AM (#31395126)

Brazil's Pix[1] completely transformed the way we deal with payments day-to-day. It's available 24/7, free of fees and has really good UX. Many small merchants are giving up on credit card and accepting only Pix. And the Central Bank of Brazil keeps pushing Pix's capabilities forward. Last year they launched two features that can be translated something like Pix Withdrawals and Pix Change (Pix Saque and Pix Troco in Portugues). The two features work similarly. Essentially they turn every commercial site into an ATM. You make a Pix to, say, a supermarket and get that money in cash. Or, in the case of Pix Change, you'd pay in Pix more than the total value of the purchase and receive the change in cash.

Pix is not even 2 years old and it's already changed the way people deal with money. It's incredibly reliable and astonishingly fast.

Who would say that the biggest Brazilian fintech revolution of all times would come from the Central Bank?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(electronic_payment_system...

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Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by hobo_mark on Monday May 16, 2022 @06:16AM (#31395278)

Also, Marc Rubinstein covered Pix in his newsletter some time ago https://www.netinterest.co/p/paying-faster-99d.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by plutaniano on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:13AM (#31397513)

I'm a brazilian living in Brazil and I can't overstate how much of a game changer Pix is. The Brazilian Central Bank did an outstanding job.

Instant transactions, zero fees, available to anyone with a bank account.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by digisign on Monday May 16, 2022 @02:04PM (#31401192)

(Your link is missing the final closing parenthesis.)

Sounds similar to what I used in New Zealand quite a few years ago. However their system wasn't confined to mobile apps. Is pix mobile only?

Also in that system payments reconciled that evening, it wasn't instantaneous. To be honest I preferred that. I was able to fix a payment with a mistake before it went out.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by marmada on Monday May 16, 2022 @01:39PM (#31400854)

Is Pix a public version of Venmo?

Seems like some of the Pix => cash features are different.

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Re:Ask HN: Is there hope for micropayments? by marcosdumay on Monday May 16, 2022 @01:25PM (#31400628)

Now we just have to integrate it with other countries.

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