
Brazilian authorities suspend WhatsApp payments - dig6x
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-23/brazil-s-central-bank-suspends-whatsapp-payments
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plausible
As a Brazilian, I'm pleased.

Our central bank is going to release a platform called PIX. Financial
institutions with more than 500.000 clients are required to implement it.
Finally we are going to have a standard across banks, and money transfers are
going to be less complex, clunky and costly.

Of course, other apps have come before. We have apps like PicPay, PayPal and
Nubank, just to name a few, that provide instant, free money transfers.
Unsurprisingly, each one rolled out their own standard, but they had to
register at the central bank as a financial institution. This means that, at
least the popular ones, will have to provide compatibility with the central
bank's platform.

This new WhatsApp feature, to me, looked like a bold attempt to kill PIX at
launch. People wouldn't mind this new feature inside their banking app that
already exists, for a few months, in the messaging app they're used to. If the
average Brazilian user sees a QR code, is it a WhatsApp Pay QR code they see
regularly? Or is it that obscure feature inside their banking app, which they
didn't pay attention to? What would make more sense for businesses to adopt,
for the sake of simplicity?

I'm glad Facebook will not get away with that one. If they're going to launch
this feature, our central bank should make sure that it's compatible with the
nationwide standard that's going to roll out. I'd rather not need Facebook to
conveniently pay for my loaf of bread.

Edit: replaced "service" with "platform".

~~~
centimeter
> money transfers are going to be less complex, clunky and costly.

You really think the Brazilian central bank is going to make a smooth,
efficient, and cheap money transfer service? What reason do you have to expect
that to work?

~~~
soneca
As a Brazilian living in the US I can tell you that the TED system is already
a smooth, efficient, and cheap money transfer service compared to the
solutions here in the US.

So I have total confidence that they are capable of creating a better yet
version of it.

~~~
danilocesar
As a Brazilian living in Canada, I can say the same.

~~~
f00zz
As a Brazilian living in Brazil I'm surprised that anyone would expect a
service provided by the Brazilian government to be efficient, or even work at
all.

This Pix thing seems to cover more than inter-bank transfers, people are
expected to use it for QR code-based mobile payments for instance.

~~~
EL_Loco
The HIV treatment program, provided by the brazilian government for free to
everyone that needs it, has been very succesful and is a model to be followed.
Not everything the government does is rotten, just a lot of it.

"Throughout the 1990s, when the annual cost of drugs for AIDS treatment often
exceeded US$10,000 per patient, the World Bank and other development agencies
discouraged developing countries from implementing treatment programs,
favoring “cost-effective” prevention over costly treatment. Brazil challenged
this conventional wisdom and, despite World Bank objections, has provided free
universal access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for all
people living with HIV/AIDS since 1996." source:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782963/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782963/)

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sktrdie
Why do services like whatsapp need support for this? We have URLs people!

Here I just send an URL to my friend via whatsapp. They click on the link. The
site takes care of giving user whichever payment method they desire. User
pays. That's it.

From a user's perspective to pay I just have to click a link. And to get paid
I just send a link. How easier can it get?

~~~
aprdm
In Canada people can pay you by having your email or phone number in their
bank app.

Works really well!

~~~
mixmastamyk
That's problematic and not as good as direct bank to bank transfers.

~~~
alphakilo
Electronic Money Transfer (EMT)/e-transfering is a bank-to-bank transfer in
Canada.

~~~
mixmastamyk
It may be convenient use other ids besides bank account numbers, but it adds
another avenue for mistakes.

~~~
frosted-flakes
Such as...?

To me, passing around a long unstructured numeric string is a lot more error-
prone than selecting a contact from my banking app, or writing a short,
structured phone number or email address. In any case, the recipient needs to
know the secret one-word answer to the question set by the sender, which would
prevent wrong parties from claiming money (this can be skipped if the
recipient registered their phone number or email address forbauto-deposit).

~~~
mixmastamyk
They are not unstructured and have checksum digits in proper implementations.

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sschueller
Why doesn't Facebook do it in the US? Too much opposition from the large
payment processing lobby?

~~~
danilocesar
lack of users might be the case. WhatsApp is ridiculous popular in Brazil, but
not that relevant in north america.

~~~
randiantech
This. I was surprised a year ago or so when I last travel to US that Wap was
not ubiquitous like in pretty much the rest of the world.

~~~
zelphirkalt
WA is not ubiquitous in some big parts of the world. It's not like it is
ubiquitous in "the rest of the world". In China at least WeChat takes the
crown and I don't know about other Asian countries.

Lets not make WA seem more "unavoidable" or seem more ubiquitous than it
really is. It's got sufficient network effect already.

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ramon
Open banking is required, please wait.

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davidgerard
original link:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-23/brazi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-06-23/brazil-
s-central-bank-suspends-whatsapp-payments)

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LockAndLol
TIL Whatsapp had payments... Is Facebook just copying WeChat?

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elchin
I would expect that WhatsApp had to get an approval before the launch? Is
Brazil less regulated when it comes to payment processing?

~~~
lullibrulli2
The article says they were in contact before this.

> Bloomberg reports that WhatsApp was surprised by the Brazillian Central
> Bank’s decision, since the company had been in regular contact with the
> authority. WhatsApp had started a small test of the service in the country
> around a month prior to its launch.

~~~
bzb3
God, stop using code blocks to quote things.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
HN needs to have a proper way to do quotes. > doesn't indent beyond the first
line once word-wrapped, | looks cute but is confusing, code-blocks suck, etc.

~~~
detaro
> _this style works well, even if applied over multiple lines. Lorem ipsum
> dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor
> invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero
> eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren,
> no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor
> sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor
> invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero
> eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum.

Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit
amet._

at least IMHO

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GekkePrutser
WhatsApp does payments??? I never knew of this.

In fact I see no sign of it in the app whatsoever. Must be a regional thing?

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agustif
They should try in Spain or other European countries where Coronavirus has hit
hard and has high WhatsApp usage

~~~
te_chris
Europe already has easy money transfer

~~~
danilocesar
Brazil too.

