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Comment by jabroni_salad | Hacker News Reader

One of the reasons Pix took off as hard as it did is because the incumbent instant payment system (TED) only worked during business hours. It basically got digg'd once a 24/7 free service came around to replace it.

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It is not true that TED got replaced or killed. In fact, it is still the leading transfer method considering the transaction volume, and by a good amount. Pix leads considering the sheer quantity of transactions. According to Central Bank data[0], in the last quarter, 2.09 trillion USD was settled via TED vs 720 billion USD via Pix.

Pix is great as a payment method for the average person, you use it to split a check and pay for your Uber, but big money still flows mostly via TED and other means.

[0] https://www.bcb.gov.br/estatisticas/spbadendos

No fees and an extremely simple UX are the other reasons it got there this fast. Plus the fact that it's operated by the central bank (trust!).

> Plus the fact that it's operated by the central bank (trust!).

I'm far from an expert or even knowledgeable about finance related matters, but isn't one of the things HN (in general) fearful of with respect to CBDC's the centralization aspect with the government. How is this any different, if any?

HN is not the real world and a lot of their fears is unjustified or overblown

The entire world of commerce is trustful, pretending otherwise is silly. FedNow just replaces the extant ACH network, and I assume Pix does something similar. This isn't a CBDC, just infrastructure for moving money between institutions - and even within CBDCs there are privacy-preserving ways of implementing it. Reality is far more banal than some of the more extreme perspectives here.

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