Agree that PIX bothers the US more because it's directly under US (self assessed) area of influence. But the reason is not some philosophical alignment, but rather deep rooted lobbying practices.

Evidence of high levels of power political pressure - US latest 25% tariff pressure came out explicitly around this topic - https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/brazil-us-clash-ove...

India's UPI is practically impossible to use even for tourists in India. It's not serving the same role as Visa and MasterCard.

Right, but PIX on their website says they're expanding to Europe, which makes me wonder what do they have to offer on this heavily saturated market.

UPI used to be good, but they started adding charges after Visa and Mastercard lobbied D.C. probably with huge bribes. And the Indian government is spineless against D.C.

Merchants don't hate the card networks. That's a minority in my experience, who are penny wise and pound foolish.

They like the card networks because they are lured by point schemes, effectively money charged to the merchants and then shared back to cardholders. Consumers would flip in a heartbeat if shops were allowed to offer discounts to those not using credit cards.

I used to by all my PC parts from a shop that had a 5% discount for cash purchases. It was the sort of shop that was just a counter with all the merch hidden in the back. I don't know how they kept the CC companies from knowing but maybe 40% of their business was cash purchases (circa 2019).

Yes, and it exists - its called "pay by bank".

its cheaper but customers lose protection for doing it, and as its illegal (yes, against the law) to offer them a discount for using debit cards, cash, or direct payments they have no reason to.

The issue is in the UK we passed a law that "banned credit card charges", but what it actually did was ban discounts for alternate payment methods, meaning everyone has to pay the credit card fees, even if you pay cash. (this was the effect, you can still offer discounts, but the base CC fee legally needs to be baked in first.)

This will mean, its harder for competing payment services to function. And its easier for the big credit card companies to up the % they charge without the public noticing, or blaming them directly.

It was fascinating watching the media coverage, twisting themselves in knots to miss these points while cheering how we were 'standing up to the big cc companies', it was actually quite cringe-worthy at times.