By Vassos Angeletou In Athens, the board of directors of the European Central Bank will meet on October 26 in order to announce its crucial decisions, not only for the interest rates of the euro, but also for a historic project in the history of the Eurozone – the digital euro. It has been known… Continue reading From Athens, the...
Brazil has a thing called PIX. Universal (bank to bank), instant, 24/7, free of charge (except for business, but the fees are way lower than credit card transaction fees). It doesn’t use blockhain, crypto or none of that, and it simply works. I think every bank and financial institution is required to provide PIX to their customers, and you can easily send money to anyone using a registered phone number, email, CPF (social security number (and no, we aren’t as paranoid as americans about it)) or a randomly generated key.
PIX entered beta testing in late 2020, and soon enough was widely available in the country, to absolute approval. It’s so easy to open bank accounts and have a PIX key that even homeless people with access to internet (which is also easy to get) have PIX and ask for money through it. Physical money is fading fast and people are loving it in Brazil.
Most EU countries also have their own version of PIX, like the Netherlands has iDeal. The EU digital coin is something else. It’s basically digital cash. You load up your digital wallet with money from your bank account and then you can pay in stores or transfer coins to another person’s wallet without having banks act as an intermediary.