Systems like these are very common in Europe. Here in Norway, you can pay for almost anything, anywhere with Vipps. It works very similarly to Brazilian Pix. Another system I have used in the past is the Portuguese MBWay which although similar to Pix and Vipps, doesn’t seem to be as widely adopted as the former.

Vipps and MBPay are a pale shadow of Pix. No aliases, no mandatory participation, much lower merchant fees, and instant settlement not dependent on the merchant bank.

MBWAY has card aliases, I believe it had been a thing since the 90s (previously know as MBNET).

The problem is that most European schemes are country specific. As soon as you cross the border even to another European country, your options are pretty much cash or Visa/MasterCard.

Yeah, the ECB just published[0] the latest report on the digital euro which is supposed to solve this across the eurozone and seems potentially quite cool, but it'll be years before it's reality.

0: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/progress/html/ec...

There is nothing for the Euro zone?

There are maestro cards, bank cards that work very conveniently including with nfc, including with Apple Pay. Given that Apple Pay supports multiple kinds of cards.. my phone probably works almost anywhere..

Maestro is owned by Mastercard (and are now being phased out for explicitly Mastercard branded cards). So like I said, cross border options are basically cash or Visa/Mastercard.

Same as pix then?

We also have the same problem: technically, PIX is only inside our borders. The thing is our borders are huge!

In practice, people have started to accept it in Portugal, Argentina, Uruguai and some other places where people tend to have accounts both in their countries of residence and Brazil.

Russia is bigger and has its own system of instant payments SBP, which has now completely substituted Visa, Mastercard etc and has some presence in 8-9 other countries (depending on whether you count Abkhazia as a country or not) with 50 foreign banks supporting it.

Russia is bigger in area but not in population.

Can’t argue with that, but I was replying to a comment about area specifically :)

Some places in France also accept Pix!

Also, Verifone PoS in the US will also accept Pix as well.

Vipps now works across the Scandinavian countries, but I doubt it will be adopted by any other countries.

Interestingly, I've spotted a few places in Portugal already accepting Pix as a form of payment, catering to a large demographic of Brazilian immigrants and tourists.

There is no PIX in Portugal, or places other than Brazil.

What they have there is a Brazilian person receiving payments from another Brazilian person, only through Brazilian accounts, all happening remotely in Brazil(at least for now)

What they have is a payment gateway that integrates the Portuguese and Brazilian payments by doing a transfer at each side.

It's the same thing as buying stuff from China with PIX, but the gateway is more hidden from the Portuguese accounts.

There has been some talk of actually internationalising Pix, but from what I understand, those uses that exist now outside of Brazil are a kludge for the benefit of Brazilian tourists.

I don't think I know a single person that doesn't have MBWAY, but I'm younger than 30, so that might have something to do with it.

Even then, everywhere you go, unless they're really small or old places that still don't accept anything other than cash, you can pay with MBWAY, through a QR code or NFC. All POS terminals support that nowadays. You can even add an email address and VAT number and newer terminals automatically skip printing the customer receipt, send it to your email and give the VAT number to the merchant (not entirely sure how that last one works, but it's there).

Now you know! :)

Interesting these platforms have existed for so long now (MBWay from 2014 and Pix 2016 if I’m not mistaken). I recall, back when it was launched, explaining it to friends in other countries (ie. UK) how good it was, not only the seamless payment network shared with friends, but also to be able to spin virtual cards with fixed value for online payments, and getting a puzzled reaction, “is that even legal?”

Thanks, just learned about this in the states:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h...

It’s a shame that it isn’t used.

I just learned about this. Looks like this system is only available to banks, and they would have no incentive to break the old system by being quick to implement this. If the Federal Reserve provided this directly to individuals, then we'd have a lot of new payment apps that bypasses the middle network (that would be a paradigm shift).

This was a whole controversy in Brazil. There was a conspiracy theory that the banks wanted to sabotage the Pix rollout because they would lose out on the fees for using the old transaction systems. In any case, there is a lot more money circulating through the banks now.

The point about Pix, it's that Central Bank made it mandatory to all banks with over 500k clients if I recall (smaller banks already wanted of course).

Besides the branding (which tbh it's a big deal), also made guidelines requirements on how the banks needed to implement. Exactly so they couldn't hide or made it worse to use.

It is brand new, released in 2023. It is a backend protocol, it requires every bank to implement the protocol. And there are some big changes compared to ACH, like having to present requests to the user. Or how to deal with reversals.

Credit cards give me cashback, worldwide acceptance and peace of mind. The country I live in, Switzerland, has a very widely accepted QR-based payment system... but credit cards (in mobile wallets) are more convenient, safer, faster. The only time I use the QR codes is when a merchant doesn't have a card terminal.

The cashback you are given back is taken from a fraction of the fee levied on merchants by the Payment Processing company they use. The only thing holding this system together is the lobby (also funded by a part of the aforementioned fee on merchants) by the Payment Processing industry to uphold laws that prohibit more expensive payments for more expensive payment methods, and also the extensive marketing (funded by guess what). It's an extremely simple yet ingrained system, and the only way to topple it and stop paying hidden costs thinking you're getting an extremely good deal on cashback, is to peel back the curtains and realize it, and make most of the politically-active part of the country's population to do so too.

But, who do you get to call in a world like that? I think the West really likes customer service and security.

Why do you think PIX doesn’t have customer service or security? It’s regulated by the central bank but operated by private companies.

Suspicious transactions are a legitimate use-case for payment processing. If you don't fully trust who you're buying from, the scam preventions, chargebacks, refunds etc. work fine. But buying lunch or small chocolates, cigarretes etc with credit cards is INSANE.

Credit card isn't more expensive than its main competitor, cash, though. It's just the costs of credit card acceptance are transparently added to each transaction, while the costs of cash are distributed over the whole day's cash transactions and so more opaque.

Merchants have a psychological (and in some countries, legal) barrier to charging more for cash than other payment methods, even though it's the least efficient. Given this, cash-back is the best way to share the efficiency gains with the end user. Maybe if Pix or Twint or debit cards or what-have-you are so efficient, they should also give consumers cashback.

Cashback is just giving part of the profit margin of the fees charged on the transactions to the customer. I would rather that profit margin gets split between the customer (lower prices) and merchant. Also, didn't the EU eliminate cashbacks by precisely price capping transaction fees?

I've seen merchants giving a discount for payment with Pix. And a few stores refuse credit cards and only accept debit and Pix (and cash?).

Also, isn't the main competitor to CC the debit card? And now in some countries instant payments? Is debit that rare in the US?

Although to be honest I'm not 100% sure if it isn't some tax evasion thing.

It could give cashback if it cost 3% of the transaction. But it’s it’s actually much cheaper. For credit cards you have to pay for the brand, the issuer and the acquirer. And each gets a nice cut.

Reducing merchant fees seems like a mistake if you are in competition with both cash (which has high intrinsic merchant costs) and credit cards (which has low intrinsic costs, but which are padded so they're closer to the costs of cash, with consumer cashback coming out of this padding). I'm certainly not going to _choose_ to receive less cashback, as a consumer.

Pix costs are very low and the fee for the merchant as well. They pay less for it and get the money instantly. That’s why many small merchants only accept pix and some big merchants offer discounts for payments using it.

Discounts for Pix vs cash sound cool and a fine alternative to cashback via the payment system. Though I can imagine this might be hard in some countries, where there is a strong pro-cash lobby.

I mean, the cashback is paid for out of the fees you pay for the service. In a world with low capped charges (EU etc) then you'll just pay less, which is equivalent to cashback and much fairer.

So long as the price is the same for cash and card (and Pix?), then you should pick the one that gives you the best kickbacks. I don't think capping CC fees will actually lower prices for consumers much (because merchants prefer round prices for psychological pricing). For evidence, see the fairly uniform pricing of products sold in euros between countries, despite varying vat rates between eurozone countries.

> see the fairly uniform pricing of products sold in euros between countries, despite varying vat rates between eurozone countries.

Huh, not sure I agree with that (the uniform pricing thing). I mean, one should believe that, but it doesn't appear to be true. For example, recently I saw a tablet for 208 euro (converted from GBP) on amazon.co.uk, approx 220 euro from amazon.de and 360 euro from amazon.ie, for the same item.

I was really surprised because I figured electronics would be pretty similarly priced across the EU/UK, but apparently not.

I don't think you mean transparently - credit card costs are invisibly added..

Bear in mind that Brazil is a poor country. Cashback and worldwide acceptance is not what 90% brasillians need.

You are right about convenience, but here, 1% fee makes a huge difference to make both ends meet.

You can give alms with pix, to show how widespread pix is.

It’s more like 3% if you receive the money after 30 data and 10% if you get it in the best day.

Brazil is actually a pretty rich country. It's just that the wealth is exceptionally highly concentrated at the top. Brazil has enormous resources and potential, but all that potential gets sucked up by the big boys in their club. Although I know what you mean, it's important to distinguish Brazil from a genuinely poor-all-over country where there is not much wealth anywhere. Even in poor or average neighbourhoods in the big cities, you can see a person with nothing and then another person drive by in a BMW.

[delayed]

Switzerland has interchange fees of 0.4% for consumer credit cards (by contactless, only slightly higher by chip+pin): https://www.visaeurope.ch/content/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unite..., https://www.mastercard.com/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/.... And yet banks offer 0.33% cashback cards: https://certo-card.ch/one.

And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway; if anything businesses should charge surcharges for accepting cash, not the other way around, and given the social constraint of no surcharges, cashback is a fair mechanism to reward efficient payment methods.

> Switzerland has interchange fees of 0.4% for consumer credit cards

Only since Wednesday of this week due to COMCO action, so no-one knows if cashback will persist, but it will be a lot less than .33%.

> And let's not forget that cash acceptance costs an order of magnitude more than this anyway;

In the EU, it's .5% for cash vs .3% for cards, but the situation falls back into favour for cash once fraud is accounted for.

> Only since Wednesday of this week due to COMCO action

That Visa fee table is dated July 2023?

Right, but prior to this week, the merchant account providers just raised scheme fees to compensate.

Yes. But credit cards have high costs for the merchant. Thats why they get to give us cashback. It depends on the country, but the cut rate goes from 1% (in europe) to 3% in Brazil.

And the merchant gets the money after a long time. It is possible to advance the payment but the rates are much higher (10%+).

So, i dont think we can even think of credit cards as instant payment. And it has mich higher costs that, in the end, go back to the consumers.

Yeah but Twint is a piece of crap. Maybe Pix or Alipay are faster to use. But I agree, Apple Pay is pretty much perfect in terms of UX for in-store and especially for online payments.

Poland has the fantastic BLIK system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blik Used country-wide, it's popular enough that global stores allow using it, like AliExpress or Steam.

Is it only available in Polish złoty for Polish citizens? Or could I, from a different EU country, open an account and use it to pay for games on Steam? My guess would be no, but it's worth asking.

It's supported by polish banks for PLN accounts, but I don't think there's a requirement to be a citizen to open an account. I know Revolut also allows using it, if you create a PLN account in it.

Revolut will only offer BLIK if your address is in Poland, it's not enough to just open a PLN subaccount. Same with Wero, it is only shown for customers in Germany and France IIRC. I have no idea why they did it like that, the backend clearly supports them all.

PSP S.A. is expanding abroad, so perhaps BLIK will be available in more countries in some time: "In September, the first BLIK transaction was made in Slovakia, and BLIK Romania S.A. received authorization from the National Bank of Romania to operate in the country. In November, the Polish Payments Standard transformed into a joint stock company, to support the execution of its strategic goals." [1][2]

BLIK has one ugly caveat, though: it has no chargeback procedure.

[1] Year 2024. [2] https://www.blik.com/en/about-us#id-15ce9a61-2597-11f0-8657-...

BLIK contactless payment uses Mastercard network.

Also, Mastercard is one of PSP S.A. [1] shareholders.

[1] Polski Standard Płatności S.A. - Polish banks' joint venture, which created and operates BLIK.

It may be good, but what does the Brazilian law say[0]?

In 2021, Brazil enacted Law No. 14.063, which governs the digitalization of public services. Its Article 16 is clear:

“Information and communication systems developed exclusively by the public administration shall be governed by open-source licenses, allowing their unrestricted use, copying, modification, and distribution by all public agencies and entities.”

In short, software developed solely by the public sector—funded with taxpayer money and intended to serve the public interest—must be made available under an open-source license.

Pix is exposed to a legal instrument called 'Mandado de Segurança'.

[0] https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servic...

Having an entity that’s sorta kinda government (I assume that the Brazilian Federal Bank is somewhat independent) develop and run Pix brings an interesting set of problems with it, including how it should be regulated and by whom. Open sourcing the platform’s software is only one form of audit/refulation. So maybe the source is secure and maybe another entity could run it but could another entity participate in the Pix network or would they have to establish their own separate one?

>>So maybe the source is secure and maybe another entity could run it but could another entity participate in the Pix network or would they have to establish their own separate one?

MInd you, the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) does have administrative autonomy. But under Brazilian law, it still counts as part of the public administration when it comes to digital systems developed using public funds.

So the legal issue isn’t about how “independent” the BCB is — it's about the origin of the software and who paid for its development. If Pix was created exclusively by a government entity, Law 14.063/2021, Article 16 requires it to be released under an open-source license. That’s the core of my point — a legal compliance issue, not a technical or governance judgment.

As for your broader question: yes, open-sourcing the platform wouldn’t necessarily mean other entities could plug into Pix directly. Participation in the network still depends on BCB regulations, trust, compliance layers, and access controls. Open code is transparency, not necessarily interoperability.

But in a system as critical as Pix, open code would at least allow independent auditing, public scrutiny, and possibly innovation through forks or parallel implementations — even if those don’t run on the live network.

So I agree — it’s a multi-layered governance issue. But transparency of publicly funded code is a foundational first step. That’s what the law mandates — and what hasn’t yet been fulfilled.

Wasn't BCB breached for a couple hundred million reais this month, as well? Maybe they are trying to keep the code closed because they know it's insecure

> Wasn't BCB breached for a couple hundred million reais this month, as well? Maybe they are trying to keep the code closed because they know it's insecure

It wasn't a BCB breach. The issue was with an integrator. Like a client API built on top of it that provided banking features to fintech startups

And it was only breached because criminals approached an IT guy from the affected bank and offered him R$5000 to hand out the passwords used to login to their internal systems. Once the hackers were inside, they had control of bank accounts and started moving money around.

So no, it wasn't a breach to BCB, neither it was caused by system insecurity, but rather, human error in a downstream implementation.

Isn't it much more likely that a court would order the code published instead of restricting the use of an extremely popular payment system and brake half of the economy?

I mean, they blocked WhatsApp (95+% usage) before so who knows, but it seems unlikely it will actually affect the average person.

I mentioned 'Mandado de Segurança' not to suggest halting Pix, but because, yes, it's the relevant instrument in Brazilian law for forcing public agencies to comply with legal duties — in this case, transparency around public code. Courts would not block Pix itself unless something extreme happened. They might simply compel BCB to release the code if the legal conditions are met.

You are complaining that the if the government publishes software it must be open source, and that data (without even looking at what data) can be requested by a judicial order?

I'm not complaining. Just pointing a legal requirement.

Edited

Oh, you are complaining that it's not currently open source.

Yeah, the government has a lot of software it still has to publish.

Similar things happen in the EU.

The EU Digital Wallet is open source. But this is not actually a wallet, but just an identity application. Then there are is Digital Euro and its wallets for which European Central Bank is willing to dump few billions of euros on closed source consultancyware.

I don't think there's any legal exposure here. Article 16 of 14.063 gives an exception to code protected by Law 12.527/2011. Articles 22 and 23 seem to clearly allow for not releasing source code if that release risks the "financial, economic, or monetary" stability of the country.

Beyond that, Pix is so popular that I doubt a challenge would hold up in court. If it went to the STF, there's no way they wouldn't give Pix a carve out.

I'm as big a fan of open source as anyone else, but can we audit any other payment systems anywhere? Is that a reasonable expectation to have for payment systems?

> This is hands down one of the best instant payment platforms at the moment. Only India's UPI can match it in features, and China and Thailand in adoption.

I'm not familiar with Pix or UPI, so out of curiosity, how are they better than Alipay/WeChat Pay (which I am familiar with)?

I can answer for UPI. Unlike AliPay/WeeChat, the central agency (NCPI) only maintains the API. Businesses are free to develop apps on top. In India, there are 50s of apps enabling UPI transactions. You are free to download whatever app you prefer unlike AliPay/WeeChat duopoly.

Same for PIX. It's a payment protocol. Any fintech can build on top and support it.

> … CCs should be an exception, not the norm they are now, with a bunch of embedded costs we all pay for, one way or another.

To spell it out, the merchant pays fees to the payment processor and carries risk (chargebacks, etc) and these costs are included (“embedded”) in the purchase price of whatever you’re buying.

Moving to instant pay moves these risks to the purchaser, which is probably not ideal for the merchant because it forces purchasers to be more careful with their spending. New merchants in particular would have to work harder to establish their reputation. Larger merchants would probably start offering credit again.

Where “insta pay” shines is for merchants with less credit worthy customers, because it allows them to operate online and in an electronic world. Currently in the U.S. that job is done with cash, but perhaps very soon with privately issued stablecoins. I guess the big question is whether the U.S. government should issue a stablecoin or similar electronic cash-like thing.

It is just better in my experience.

You just scan a QR code and pay.

Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have. Or to think you are making “points” by spending more money

> Not much point of using a credit card unless you want to spend money that you don’t have.

This is absolutely not why millions of people use credit cards. To repeat: Immediately handing cash to a merchant carries risk for the purchaser. What if the product is defective, or the order never filled, etc?

With stronger consumer protection laws I will just send the thing back. If the merchant does not honor, is an easy case to win on the small claims courts.

The risk is buying from shady merchants and platforms that don't care about the legal system, or can delay the resolution of the dispute.

For instance buying from China on AliExpress, I will obviously not use Pix (through AliPay), but my credit card.

This is really not a issue in Brazil. Consumers laws are strong. I actually prefer to use Pix for exact this reason, because I can get the refund in 1 second, literally (already did with Amazon). While with credit cards that's not the case.

So the merchant is assuming more risk because the customer can take back their money... How long does the merchant need to wait before they're certain the payment they have received can't be taken back?

If is online, over the phone, etc., you can return or cancel for any reason within 7 days. And this also include services. For example, if I sign up with a new ISP, I can cancel it within that 7-day period (even if it have a 1 year contract).

If it's in-person you bought something, technically you can only return up to 30 days for non durable goods, and 90 days for durable goods, if there's some problems with the product, or a reason etc.

At least in the UK, one advantage of the credit card is that it puts the transaction under the consumer credit act. That means that for purchases above 100 quid the credit card company is jointly on the hook with the supplier if, for example, the supplier fails to deliver the goods because they go bust, or if the goods are faulty, and you can get your money back from the credit card company if necessary. This doesn't apply for debit card purchases.

You're wasting a relevant amount of money by not using a credit card in Brazil. Interest rates are so high right now they have reached 1% monthly, which you can pocket by just delaying payment on everything for a month. And credit is stupid cheap here, too, with a bunch of different picks for free credit cards giving thousands of reais for anyone.

If you have some money you can easily get a card with high cashback, as well, in the 1%+ territory depending on if you want big banks or not, and pay no fees.

I live in central Asia, inflation is very low where I live.

But yeah I get the point. It was similar in Turkey, but still wasn’t that valuable to save 1% unless you are really trying to squeeze hard

Not always. I tried to buy a laptop on Lenovo's website. They rejected my credit cards several times, despite my Serasa credit rating maxed out, etc etc.

But then they offered me the laptop with enough discount that was a no brainer. I obviously calculated the difference between 1x, 12x with the hidden interest - cashback and Pix.

So 3 days lost trying to buy the thing, then instant approval and next day delivery when I paid with Pix.

When I bought the NSW2 on pre sale, it was better to use installments, get some cashback, etc.

I meant for everyday stuff, not larger purchases where discounts may apply, I may have oversimplified. I do buy stuff with Pix now and then, but day-to-day NFC credit is my go-to

Some places give you a discount if you buy things on Pix. Buying on CC is kinda an illusion.

It's more worth to buy things with Pix, and use things like Inter/Meliuz to use 10%~ cashback on stores...

(of course, if you don't want to use insurance or installments).

Btw, my father produce furniture and industrial products, and we always make the price clear to the customer, including what the price would be depending on the payment method. It might not be ideal, but… we prefer to give the transparency to the clients. Because of this, I do say 90% of the clients these days pay only with Pix. A few years ago it was all CC or debit cards.

>It is just better in my experience.

>You just scan a QR code and pay.

Tap to pay (ie. NFC) with credit cards is as convenient and arguably more convenient than a QR code solution. At the very least you don't have to worry about aiming at the QR code and waiting for it to scan/focus, which is especially important if you're using it on transit systems.

Pix already has tap to pay [1]. However it's still a recent adition (a few months), so most card machines still don't support it (AFAIK).

Once this is widespread, then the only reasons to use credit will be cashback/points or paying in credit.

[1] https://www.gov.br/secom/pt-br/assuntos/noticias/2025/02/pix...

Most card machines support it. The PoS just need to accept Google Pay and it will accept it.

Still prefer a debit card for this, credit aspect just hasn’t been of any use to me so far. And I see people getting into problem because of credit cards a lot.

This also doesn't require functional cell service.

Tap to pay leaves you at the mercy of all the usual bullshit credit card processors impose.

What means that if you have a very normal behavior, yes, it's more convenient. If you deviate from the norm in any way, it's an unreliable piece of shit that will leave you hanging without money the moment you need it most.

And as deviant people drop out of that system, the bar for deviance gets lower and lower.

>Tap to pay leaves you at the mercy of all the usual bullshit credit card processors impose.

1. "Tap to pay" refers to a technology, specifically NFC communications. Anyone can use it, not just "credit card processors". For instance, many transit agencies also use NFC for their passes/tickets, and those obviously aren't being intermediated by "credit card processors".

2. Any sort of centralized system will be susceptible to "all the usual bullshit credit card processors impose". At least with credit card companies there's theoretically a degree of independence from the government. A government run payments system, staffed by government appointed cronies would be even more susceptible to government pressure to block certain groups.

You can use Tap to Pay with Pix. Although only Google Pay support Pix solution. Apple Pay is refusing because... fees.

The thing with a credit card, is that when I buy something online, or it never gets delivered, or turns out to be crap, I can get the credit card company to reimburse me.

And in person, if someone manages to copy it and fraud me, I can also get it resolved and have the credit card company pay me back.

Do these instant payment system offer similar protections?

There's the small claims courts for that, strong consumer protection laws.

Also some banks are offering insurance on trial basis already.

But yeah, I prefer CC on international platforms, or if the cashback is higher than the discount they offer via Pix (5% to 20%).

Lenovo offered me 20% on a Laptop recently through Pix.

With the discount I paid a bit more on broader support, keep your disks, liquid damage protection.

And from someone who lived in Brazil. Small claims court fucking suck. A kafkian nightmare compared to a chargeback.

New merchants are then hit with fraudulent chargebacks with ridiculous fees (they are ridiculous for small purchases) and all the benefits of credits cads evaporate for a merchant.

Being more careful with purchases is a net benefit to society in general.

The best instant payment system is cash. It allows the merchant to skip the taxes too. Unbeatable.

Cash is a hassle. It requires everyone to have change. You need to count the money, the cashier needs to count the money and store it. The line behind you gets longer. The end of day close-out process is longer.

Brazilians also generally don't like to walk with cash in their pockets. Only politicians usually do it, but in their underpants.

The pros is that cash is analog, no battery, internet connection or digital system needed to process it.

Also theft/robbery.

Not that Pix isn't a risk, being forced to do bank transactions at gunpoint is a thing now, but anyway.

Cash is king - but security is an issue unless you are dealing with small amounts.

I can buy and pay for an airline ticket online with pix, and not with cash

> online

You still can buy airline tickets with cash. Not online though.

Yes, that's what I said

Also allows the employees to skip paying the business too.

In sweden we got Swish which is instant payments. But costs money when business use it (but cheaper than credit cards i think)

This is also true for Pix.

Not really. Some banks don't have fees for PJs. IIRC, Inter and Nubank doesn't. Now PoS which offer Pix then yes. All of them do have fees as far I know.

Developed countries (like the US) do have these capabilities, there's fed now in the US, but the banks have captured the government apparatus so that the government can't force it to become the default cos they wouldn't be making interest money on the cash they get to hold without instant payments.

The second part "but the banks (in Developed countries) have captured the government apparatus" seems to be true mainly of the USA?

As SEPA in the EU, and Faster Payments in UK don't seem to fit that.

Unless you have other examples outside of the USA, or a different opinion on SEPA?

In Finland, I have to use Visa everywhere. Banks offer debit cards, but they use the Visa network. Some smaller sellers also accept Mobilepay, but its not very common.

> In Finland, I have to use Visa everywhere

Why? Finland is in SEPA.

I have never seen a store offering any payment method called "SEPA". After reading up on it, it just looks like some protocol to do bank transfers between countries, and it requires exchanging IBAN numbers. I do pay rent and some bills via direct bank transfer, but that's it. Its nothing like this Brazilian payment alternative.

Yes, that's correct it's a protocol, it's under the hood. You won't see a SEPA Branding (or "Faster Payments" in the UK).

It's for bank transfers between accounts, which could be in the same country, or not. If you do a bank transfer of e.g. a 3-digit sum, and it arrives the same day, that's SEPA. If it's in a few seconds, that's SEPA Instant (1).

The grandparent post about "these capabilities" - specifically in comparison to the US FedNow -seems to cover more than just point-of-sale, right? Although that is mentioned in the SEPA Instant use cases.

1) https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...

Argentina, despite enduring ongoing economic and political challenges, has had a bank-to-bank transfer system since 1997. In 2018, it expanded to include Payment Service Providers (PSPs).

While it is a private service by a company called Mercado Libre (which means Free Market), in Argentina we have Mercado Pago (which means Market Pay), has instant payments and it is free for 99% of the people that do P2P transactions. It is free for anyone, meaning, you don't pay to use it. You only need your national document. Of course, after seeing the success, the banks tried to implement MODO, but it was already too late.

Mercado Pago is closer to PayPal than PIX. I'd say it's a generation behind Google Pay/Apple Pay.

This. Mercado Pago is also available in Brazil, and it requires you deposit funds in their own account to use.

The thing about PIX most people don't get, including Europeans in this thread, is it integrates into whatever is your bank, so you can use your bank's cashing account to pay, no external app or account necessary.

You can put your credit cards on Mercado Pago and pay with it... But yeah. Before PIX, places were going with PicPay and Mercado Pago world... And Pix just "killed" both overnight lol

I use Mercado Pago as my bank account, so I don't need to deposit anything as long as I have money.

Malaysia has duitnow which they recently started making it international. You can buy a coffee in Thailand with a duitnow wallet (ie: BigPay). It is also integrated with AliPay, so you can pay wherever AliPay is accepted (most of China).

I honestly think, at this point, they should just drop the bomb; take their currency to the blockchain (stablecoin) and make the wallets fully connectable to the crypto ecosystem. China doesn't seem keen to take a more open role to capital markets, so there is a void there.

agreed. Additionally it may reduce the power of fringe groups from pressuring private companies who are doing legal business. The recent Steam and itch.io takedowns due to collective shout come to mind.

Russia has had a similar system for some time now.