Direct deposit: Images of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the former president, on the screen during a televised presidential debate in Sao Paulo. Pix has even become an issue in the presidential campaign. — Bloomberg
SAO PAULO: When Brazil’s central bank announced in 2020 it was launching a free electronic payments system called Pix, many people had no idea what it was talking about.
Today, instant transfers are so ubiquitous, Brazilians use them tens of millions of times a day, for everything from paying the rent to buying groceries to giving money to beggars on the street.
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