I can see that Visa and Mastercard are freaking out, not because Pix can take over their business model, but because it can give ideas to other countries doing the same.
I've spent three months earlier this year in Brazil and never used Pix once. Not because I didn't want, but because I couldn't, or let's be honest: my time was not worth the hassle. To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID). Then to open a bank account, mostly local banks only accept Pix, with which you can tie your CPF. It's possible but it's definitely not straightforward the slightest. All the while Visa and Mastercard work everywhere in the country, I almost never had to pay in cash, even some sellers in the streets accepted regular credit cards.
Pix is certainly great, but locally only, and if every country comes with its own system and Visa or Mastercard disappear, we are going to go back to how people used to travel 50 years ago: with a lot of USD bank notes hidden in your hotel room or elsewhere ...
Pix is a good local idea, but the world needs something better.
> Pix is a good local idea, but the world needs something better.
There is no problem to continue using maybe Visa/Mastercard when dealing abroad or external, but when you are a normal citizen, it's far better to use Pix in this case, you are supporting a national company, paying fee's to them and not at the whims of an external countries policies.
Edit: They also tend to be non profits ironically enough.
In Ireland many years ago there was a system called "Laser" which was very similar, the only reason it was changes was for 'convenience' but in reality it was because Visa and MC had taken over all the POS market, and so Laser cards couldn't give cash back. So the banks just folded.
I can't wait to see Europe being some competition to the duopoly that is Mastercard and Visa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_(debit_card)
> To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID).
It's not ideal, but you can use Wise to pay using Pix and India's UPI. You simply transfer the money from your local bank account to Wise and they transfer to whatever Pix you tell. It's almost instant.
Meanwhile, there are talks about integrating these systems. This is the obvious long-term game, a clear threat to Visa and MasterCard.
Right now in Brazil the only advantages of using a regular credit card are the cashbacks and convenience to use contactless. The convenience is going away -- Pix now supports contactless payment, but it's not widely accepted yet.
Wise remains one of the worst professional support experiences I've ever had at my company and would highly advise people not to use them.
In contrast, I had great support the one time I contacted them. Have used them in business and personally across a number of different accounts with no problems.
What is a better alternative in your experience?
You don't need a brazilian tax ID to use PIX, I've used it from MercadoPago from another country and there are a lot of options to use it besides MP.
There is India's UPI (launched in 2016), Singapore PayNow (Launched 2017) that works in a similar way. And they also work across each platform.. UPI users in India can transfer to Paynow users in Singapore and vice versa.
[1] https://www.dbs.com.sg/personal/deposits/pay-with-ease/payno...
some UPI users to some Paynow users. (limited to participating institutions only).
Thailand Promptpay is federated too, as are some Japanese services.
> but because it can give ideas to other countries doing the same
This is happening right now in Europe. You have systems like Blik, Twint, Swish etc.
I know that at least Blik is working on making it possible for international payments.
> I know that at least Blik is working on making it possible for international payments
International transfers between MB Way (PT) and Bizum (ES) are working e.g. via phone number. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Alliance
What's needed in Europe is federation of the existing systems, not one winner taking it all.
EPA [0] and EPI [1] are doing that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Initiative
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Alliance
That's exactly what's happening, see the EU digital euro scheme. It's planned to be free of fees too, modeled around how SEPA was done for wires.
There has been massive resistance by the incumbents of course, including banks (since they too charge a fee on top of visa).
It's been in the backlog for years but the US sanction against ICC judges leading to them being cut off from most things including payment triggered a renewal of it.
Twint is in Switzerland for more than 10 years, hardly a new idea
> To be able to pay with Pix, one needs to get a CPF (Brazilian Tax ID).
There are third party apps you can use to pay with pix using a credit card, can't recall that name, but read about it here a few months back, on another pix-thread.
> CPF (Brazilian Tax ID). Then to open a bank account
Getting a CPF is absolutely trivial, but I'm not sure you can open a bank account without RN/RNE, at least not with local banks. Can probably manage with one of the online banks.
I think you need a RN/RNM to open a bank account even with online banks - I haven’t tried all of them of course so there might be some that work with cpf only
Europe is already moving towards having own payment system with Wero
Most European countries I frequent already have their own local equivalent to Pix. In Spain almost everyone has Bizum, and not uncommon for vendors at markets to accept it too, Sweden has Swish which is the same deal for the Swedes. I think this lists the most prominent ones that are in wide usage today already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Mobile_Payment_System...
Apparently, some of these already have interoperability between each other too (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Payments_Alliance), happy to learn I can now send/receive money to/from my Portuguese brethren :)
Since May the 5th most shops will begin integrating Bizum within their payments systems.
In Spanish:
https://cincodias.elpais.com/companias/2026-04-01/a-partir-d...
Since the Bizum became widespread, depending on the size of the business, some always did accept Bizum if you ask nicely :)
Wero is a private effort, the digital euro is closer to Pix but it keeps being stalled (given the article in question, one could make some guesses as to why).
"we are going to go back to how people used to travel 50 years ago: with a lot of USD bank notes hidden in your hotel room or elsewhere ..."
Who did that?
Most people except for criminals and refugees used traveller's cheques:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller%27s_cheque
I think some banks, like AmEx, still issue them.
People did that? I took one look at the fees and ... "no thank you", and took cash.
Yeah, if I wanted to pay the crazy spread on currency exchange, I’d use my credit card instead.
10 years ago I was still traveling with a bunch of $100 banknotes and reading blogs to find the most honest shady currency exchange place with good rates wherever I went. Fun times!
I even paid for two! iPhones in cash back then!
Today? I just stop by an ATM and withdraw some cash, everything else goes contactless on Wise.
on Europe there is talks about using Spanish's Bizum as the oficial European replacement for Visa/MasterCard
It's not a replacement until they issue cards that work without a phone.
Frankly, the number of people that care about no-phone functionality is tiny. I bet the greatest preference is the other way: the ability to use it without a physical card. Everyone has a phone.
Of course you need a backup at some point, but it’s just that: a backup.