> 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.
Another advantage is anti-fraud measures and remedy (chargebacks). This (BTW clearly AI-generated) article mentions some fraud thing they're working on (Special Refund Mechanism), so we'll see how long it takes for that to take effect.
For now, I'll be using our Canadian not-quite-Pix called Interac to pay small amounts of money to people I trust, but I won't any time soon be buying a fridge with it, or booking a week-long cottage stay on a website I've never used before.
Canadian here who's not familiar with Pix; is Interac a pretty close comparable? If so, it's not the end-all answer for exchanging money for goods & services, but great in a small subset of transactions.
It's not run by a central bank and not mandated, but it "organically" became standard for banks and many vendors to support it. I hope they find a good way to combat fraud and the fee differential will make it more frequent for vendors to offer a discount for cash/Interac (or an extra charge for credit cards). It used to be common, then got banned, and is now allowed but uncommon. I for one don't really want to use an American credit card, but the fact that I get 1.5% cash back and fraud protection is a fairly strong incentive.
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.
tbh even cashback these days might be worthless. It need to be a considerable amount. Because most things you buy, you have a discount when buying with Pix or money...
What still make credit cards strong in Brazil it's installments though...
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.