Brazil central bank to launch Pix installment feature in September
165 comments
·July 21, 2025ojosilva
voxleone
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'.
I have written about it:
https://d1gesto.blogspot.com/2025/06/brazils-pix-system-face...
[0] https://www.gov.br/governodigital/pt-br/plataformas-e-servic...
miohtama
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.
jt2190
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?
voxleone
>>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.
JoeJonathan
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?
marcosdumay
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?
voxleone
I'm not complaining. Just pointing a legal requirement.
Edited
mvieira38
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
iury-sza
> 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
jowea
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.
voxleone
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.
rcruzeiro
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.
em500
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.
guhcampos
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.
riffraff
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...
null
BurningFrog
There is nothing for the Euro zone?
usrnm
Same as pix then?
mrisoli
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.
renrutal
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)
jowea
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.
Tmpod
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).
xcf_seetan
Now you know! :)
mlinhares
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.
wslh
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).
SideburnsOfDoom
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?
weberer
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.
omega___
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.
dandellion
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.
omega___
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.
jt2190
> … 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.
ozgrakkurt
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
mvieira38
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.
jt2190
> 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?
gruez
>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.
pm215
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.
didibus
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?
whatevaa
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.
kwanbix
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.
dudus
Mercado Pago is closer to PayPal than PIX. I'd say it's a generation behind Google Pay/Apple Pay.
guhcampos
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.
victorbjorklund
In sweden we got Swish which is instant payments. But costs money when business use it (but cheaper than credit cards i think)
ek750
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.
Argonaut998
Last week Trump targeted Pix and Brazil for discriminating against Mastercard and Visa[0]. Also last week there was the Steam debacle involving the same two companies which brought attention to the power that this duopoly holds all across the world. In Brazil many people, if not the majority use interest free instalments to pay for anything above groceries - “parcelas”, all of which, until now, were done through Mastercard & Visa. So this is yet another blow to these companies and perhaps accelerated by Trump’s threats.
It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space, with the news of the dependence on Azure and their aims to decouple from the US.
It’s a nice apt story for what’s being going on this last week.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/e17e6de1-d863-46f8-bfab-fa8cbfc49...
dathinab
> discriminating against Mastercard and Visa
how can you discriminate against a duopoly ;)
> It also highlights how desperately the EU is behind other countries in this space,
(you seem to be drifting into the server center topic but I will take "this space" as payment processing)
It's complicated, EU has many payment standards which 1) are required between banks, and 2) theoretically allow integration with new payment processing methods needing only the end-users agreement not the banks. So you can relatively easily send money between people (and to company accounts, too) without touching visa/mastercard at all (how easy that "relative part" does still vary a lot tho. (Also if you are willing to pay a fixed up price (commonly free or 15ct) also fast, like in seconds).
At the same time when it comes to 1) banking cards, 2) payment terminals, pretty much everything is build on Mastercard/Visa (where I live mostly Visa). Like there is no competition when it comes to the secure chips this systems use. (But then both PayPall and pretty much all of China have kinda shown you don't really need them as long as you have internet, which payment terminal often need to for any non very small payment amounts). Also because people are so used to a well working reasonable secure card payment system many tries to push for app based alternatives kinda fail, sure due to their dominant position in online shopping Paypal is still a thing, but also commonly relegate to at most one of multiple options in online shopping. Just to be clear the exact dynamics differ _vastly_ between country in the EU.
Any I really don't like the generic pay in rates functionality, it's a trap which really can fuck up peoples life (similar to using the dipso all the time/not getting out of it, or large credit boundary or however it's called for credit cards; to be honest dispo tends to be worse tho).
inerte
"interest free" deserves quotes. It appears to be so because the installments have the same value but in reality it's priced in the overall length vs price.
The installment culture is so pervasive in Brazil a lot of places don't even bother to show the full price (a vista). And some of them refuse to give a discount if you want to pay the full price now. Not because it doesn't make economic sense, but it's simply not an option a regular employee in major retail stores is even allowed to do, as companies default marketing and systems to installment payments.
vimy
EU is building Wero to replace all the national payment systems. It uses sepa under the hood.
toomuchtodo
Europe and the UK have instant SEPA credits and debits, no? That's 41 countries within the single instant payment system.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/instant_pa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
dathinab
yes, but at the moment the user facing interfaces are not greate (in most countries, they are pretty good in some countries)
- sending money (P2P, P2B, B2B) often requires manually entering a IBAN in your banking app/website (_except in some countries_, and some systems on top of it can also reduce the friction) which is okay for many P2P use cases but not good for physical shop checkout P2B use case or ad hoc bill sharing use case in P2P (also compared to some other solutions this often comes with less consumer protections)
- doesn't interface (well) with the card payment/payment terminal ecosystem (but technically can and you do find it in some edge cases)
- fast (in seconds) payment cost extra and price is bank/country dependent (through in some countries it's free or consistently "cheap" e.g. a fixed 15ct(€) independent of amount and recipient)
but this is likely too change, some countries have already put up standards for more convenient P2P (and P2B??) payment methods and they seem to be in the process of being adapted EU wide (but not necessary UK and other non EU SEPA members)
in addition there are standardized interfaces for 3rd parties companies to link up with SEPA and/or you bank account which do technically allow companies to innovate on improvements. Practically this often runs into issues, 1) from a consumer POV in many (not all) EU countries the state of card payment is just fine and convenient features like easy bill sharing many people either don't need or don't know what they miss out on. 2) many issues are on the (physical) shop side, but you need to provide things users can use and having multiple systems in parallel is often not very practical, 3) at the same time without shops allowing new systems customer don't have any reason to adapt such new systems
anyway all of this likely will improve quite a bit relatively soon
tonfa
Also digital euro is targeting payment systems (https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...)
jowea
From the comments it seems it supports direct person to person transfers, but how easy is it to use it for payments? Can you use SEPA to pay for your groceries? Or buy something on the Internet?
Argonaut998
It’s crap in comparison. It’s not flexible at all. It’s still SEPA even though it’s “instant” and not all banks support it yet (although they are supposed to).
toomuchtodo
October 2025 is the deadline for all banks to support the instant part, and I don't understand your complaint that it's instant but "still SEPA." That's good! It's a utility that just works. You can always bolt trimmings on at the institutional level. What are your expectations for what it should be?
aosaigh
What do you mean it's not flexible? I've always thought of the EU as being way ahead of the US in banking terms, with lots of digital banks offering instant payments and all EU banks offering SEPA instant transfers. I'm interested to hear about these other platforms outside of the EU/US and how they are innovating.
alexalx666
N26 execs instant payments reliably in Germany
MilaM
SEPA is not crap. It's actually pretty awesome, considering that you can instantly transfer money between 5000+ banks in 30+ countries, with practically zero fees.
The UX of SEPA is lacking in comparison to other modern payment systems for sure. I'm confident though, that it will improve soon. Wero [1] seems like a decent start and appears to be gaining traction lately. It's basically a layer on top of SEPA Instant payment with extra features and a decent app based UI/UX.
anonymousDan
I wonder what the total value to the Brazilian economy is to keep Visa/MasterCard's cut of so many transactions in Brazil instead of being siphoned offshore.
crossroadsguy
It's not just that. It's also about - one fine day a nation waking up to Visa/MC "disconnecting" that nation. Why? Well, maybe the mothership nation's leader just felt like it. Who the hell knows. The point is - these nations don't want to find that out. Almost all of these countries have faced such sanctions, blocking, control etc in one way or the other at some point.
klysm
Visa and MasterCard are shaking in their boots and will scratch and bite on their way down to kill anything like this in the US.
vitorbaptistaa
This has already started with Trump's tariffs: https://valorinternational.globo.com/foreign-affairs/news/20...
> While the system is not named directly, a document from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) says that “Brazil also appears to engage in a number of unfair practices with respect to electronic payment services, including but not limited to advantaging its government-developed electronic payment services.”
I'd be surprised if there aren't big tech/credit card companies lobbying behind this.
vitorgrs
Earlier this week, Brazil VP Geraldo Alckmin (who is also a Development, Industry, Trade and Services Minister) meet to talk about tariffs with several big tech executives and also a "big tech" lobbyist. Worth to point out that.... Visa was there.
- Igor Luna, Legal Consultant of the Brazilian Digital Economy Chamber
- Nuno Lopes Alves, General Director of Visa
- Gustavo Lage Noman, Vice President of Government Affairs at Visa
- Márcia Miya, Government Affairs Manager at Apple
- Gustavo Dias, Head of Legal and Institutional Relations Latin America
- Yana Dumaresq, Director of Public Policy at Meta
- Daniel Arbix, Legal Director at Google
Igor Luna were doing heavy lobby against social network regulation that happened.
cadamsdotcom
Pix is great now - one concern is that it needs to be nimble enough to evolve as the country does. If it is still meeting the needs of Brazil & Brazilians in 10+ years time that will be an even greater triumph.
Meanwhile to the Brazilian people, congratulations & enjoy being world leaders in payments!
atbpaca
In a sense, Trump's rant against Pix is promoting it to the world. Moreover, some stores in Portugal and more recently France are accepting Pix as form of payment.
bgnn
It's not a small population. There's estimated 40k Brazilians in the Netherlands for example, most of them illegal. They need a payment system which doesn't require a European bank account.
PS: I don't think anyone is illegal, but the system push them out.
zanellato19
This is such good news. The amount of value extracted of the brazillian people from outlandish interest rates from credit cards is unbelievable and this will free all of us from it.
vitorgrs
Just a reminder that Google Pay supports Pix! You can pay using Pix with QR Code, keys or just NFC with it.
There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay...
diego_moita
> There were reports that Apple doesn't want to implement on Apple Pay...
No surprise.
1. Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal.
2. If Apple were to implement it they wouldn't be able to get away with the huge margins they charge.
rescbr
> Apple is irrelevant in 3rd world countries. It is a luxury brand for millionaires. Doesn't have mass appeal.
Apple has 9% market share in Brazil. This is not irrelevant. It’s not a luxury thing for millionaires, but rather a status symbol for the middle class.
There’s this whole market of iPhone leasing plans where you get a new phone whenever Apple releases a new one, banks offering 21x installment payment plans to purchase iPhones, and a vibrant secondhand and refurbished market.
This 9% segment of the population can’t be ignored, specially considering the income inequality in the Brazilian society. They might not have a high credit card limit or due to lack of financial literacy, they want to avoid using credit cards, so they might prefer to use debit and PIX for daily transactions.
igortg
How much of these 9% uses Apple Pay? My bet it's just a small part. People still use Pix and physical Credit/Debit Cards. Google Pay/Apple Pay are far behind.
henry700
You're right, except for the last sentence. Lack of financial literacy has some levels. One could refuse to use Credit Cards because they don't perceive the benefits (point programs or cashback) they could individually attain, but one can also refuse to use Pix because "I only have to pay my credit card invoice once at the end of the month and can spend without worries during the month" (which is even dumber, but is the reality we're living on).
null
diego_moita
I believe the greatest story behind Brazil's Pix, India's UPI and Kenya's Mpesa is the emergence of a lot new forms of money.
We will have strong national currencies supported by these payment systems, destroying Visa and Mastercard and hurting PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. These systems have a lot more potential than most people imagine (e.g.: micro lending , even for illiterate people).
We will have "gangster money", a.k.a. crypto currencies, to sustain illegal activities. There is no other use case for crypto, only this.
And we will probably have "economic blocs" money (e.g.: whatever thing the BRICS come up with).
In this scenario I'd hope for a big change in the international payments system.
The dollar will not have one rival, will have many. I hope it dies by a thousand cuts.
vitorgrs
About Pix, I think people forget really how useful it can be to different things.
You can sign documents with Pix! ClickSign and others support it. You can just send 1 cent, and this can be one of the possibilities to sign documents!
https://ajuda.clicksign.com/article/558-assinando-um-documen...
hshdhdhj4444
One of the key benefits of India’s UPI is that it’s removed the middle man when it comes to benefits to the poor which has drastically reduced corruption and ensured the money goes to the people it’s supposed to.
The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms, but in reality, it’s the actual improvement in life driven significantly by the adoption of UPI that’s played the biggest role.
gruez
>The West likes to paint the government success in India around religious terms
Examples? The only discussion of "religious terms" around Indian coverage by western media is about how the ruling party BJP panders to "Hindu nationalism", which can be simultaneously true alongside competent leadership.
mkbkn
How has UPI reduced corruption? Please enlighten me.
orbisvicis
> There is no other use case for crypto, only this.
I'm sorry but last few months have done nothing if not demonstrate the need for crypto currency, aka digital cash. It may not be ready, but it is likely the only path forward. In the meantime Monero is relatively stable, sufficiently anonymous, and has comparatively low transaction fees.
The monopoly of existing payment processors cannot continue. They have a stranglehold on fees and issue cards that promote economically harmful activities. They and contactless payment processors sell your data. And now they control what you can and can't purchase.
Enter national digital currencies such as as the proposed CBDC. Fear-mongering sites making such outlandish claims [1]. So I do a bit of research, and find [2]... wait, what?
"In addition, it [full anonymity] would make it virtually impossible to limit the use of the digital euro as a form of investment – a limitation that is essential from a financial stability perspective."
Suddenly I trust [3] so much less. The technical controls required to implement inventory limits would just as easily enable expiration dates and automatic devaluation, or whatever overreach governments deem necessary down their slippery slope.
1. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a...
2. https://www.financemagnates.com/fintech/payments/cash-with-a...
3. https://becid.eu/facts/fact-check-is-the-central-banks-aim-f...
Where does Pix fall in this spectrum?
BLKNSLVR
I find it interesting your very narrow view of cryptocurrencies given the things you're excited about.
Don't let the bad shit (and, holy shit, there is a lot) distract from the potential.
cynicalpeace
When I first moved to LatAm, the cashiers always asked how many "cuotas" I wanted to pay. I was initially confused and realized it meant I could take a (interest free?) loan to pay for my purchases in installments.
I never understood how this was common in high interest countries in LatAm, but unheard of in the USA.
Does anyone know? Like actually know, not speculating.
d0100
It's common because people want goods but don't have the money to buy it
Oh you want a $140 Instant Pot? I think you mean a 1.5x minimum wage Instant Pot
So the only way to buy an Instant Pot is to do installments
rescbr
It's interest-free for the customer because the interest was already bundled in the good's price.
It's risk-free for the retailers, as the full purchase amount is taken from the customer's credit card limit, but they will only receive the money in installments, unless they opt to receivables financing.
There are retailers that offer discounts if you purchase in one lump sum. Now recently some banks started giving discounts if you pay the installments in advance.
This is common in high interest countries as there is this whole financing industry that revolves around customer credit, and as the interest rates are high enough, there is lots of money to be made.
joseda-hg
It really will depend on the country
If you're using a credit card, you specify at POS how you want to split the purchase (Number of installments, or cuotas in spanish), if it's free of interest will depend on your deal with the bank (And if the seller has different plans)
It's common for even the worse cards to charge interest at least from the third month onwards, but most banks have special deals with seller of costlier products (I'm pretty sure I could make a car payment with 0 interest (to my card))
Can't comment further, but the US has always seemed particularly backwards regarding their banking: - Needing a third party to allow instant transfers - Mobile POS being weird / Needing to take a card away from a table to charge it - How common checks are - Overdraft fees
owebmaster
People can't save so they need to pay with credit to buy things they want, even it that means paying 2x the original price.
null
drumnerd
Fuck trump, the Epstein buddy
Ave Brasil
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. Most Western countries have had a (somewhat timid) taste of instant payments, but most don't know what it means to just drop credit and debit cards and cash altogether for a system that is not just universally adopted (from apps to flea markets to online payments and subscriptions), but preferred by merchants and consumers alike.
Obviously credit cards give you credit, if that's what you want/need, maybe a postponement until your monthly statement is closed, or chargebacks and maybe insurance, but 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.