It shocks me how well it works sometimes. Literally press pay and move eyeballs to notifications and it's there already.
Most people don't experience the full scope of Pix which is impressive.
It's like WhatsApp but with money!
If the e-krona happens, that would be a better comparison.
It kind of works and Swish does too, unless they're down which happens every now and then, but there is room for improvement that would be easier realised as a public sector endeavour.
People still increasingly pay their rent here via eInterac.
The article doesn't mention China's digital renminbi, but it is similar, including the aspect of being offered by the country's central bank.
Rather than this looking like "Alien tech" in the US, it's just another example of things in the US looking more like stone age tech to the rest of the world.
Like banned chinese EVs, and a pushback on solar electricity generation, all of these are manifestations of the US government primarily making it easier for multi-billion $$ multi-national corpses to filch the general population.
This isn't just the orange cheato, it's been the policy of every modern US administration, with the backing of the majority of the legislature.
And for some reason, the plurality of voters seem to be in favor.
On the former - paying is:
Unlock phone
Launch app
Authenticate
Choose to pay with pix
Scan QR code
Enter amount
Authenticate again
Wait
Payment made
Show cashier your phone
On the single point of failure side of things - I was at an event in Brasilia a month or so back, pix grinds to a crawl, taking 10+ minutes per transaction, and the drinks queues rapidly got out of hand. As nobody accepts cash any more, and because nobody has a card any more, this meant they sold practically no drinks.
So it ain’t bad but tbh passing bits of paper back and forth is still easier.
You can actually pay QR Code Pix now with Samsung by just opening the camera too.
Apple refuses to implement Pix on Apple Pay, and regulatory agencies are trying to change that...
Pix integration with Google Pay it's just amazing.
Imagine the situation in the US as if every app or website magically used Google Pay.
Well, that's Brazil now if you use Android. Because as soon as you copy a Pix code, it will prompt Google Pay :) And every service in Brazil have Pix... Even international ones as Stripe supports...
What's with people complaining that they can't terminate transfers out of their accounts?
How much does this matter in the context of paying in BRL, to a BRL merchant, in Brazil?
More fancy payment flow are also available, such as vendors generating one-time QR code that already include the payment amount, and the user apps generating one-time QR code that the vendor scan, thus switching some of user steps to the vendor.
In most cities I've lived and visited, using QR is far more convenient than paper. Good luck using contactless when most phones don't support it, and even when Visa & MasterCard pushed their contactless standard, I never encounter a single vendor with a working machine (this range from small shops to large hypermarket). Maybe because they have bigger MDR than QR, but from customers PoV contactless simply don't work, until QRIS also adopt NFC and suddenly it's workable (but not widespread yet since most phones still don't)