Most merchants in Brazil đŸ‡§đŸ‡· don't accept Revolut Visa cards

They will not do that in the foreseeable future. The fees charged to merchants for accepting a domestic card are lower than those for foreign cards, particularly with debit cards. I found one supermarket in Rio, Mundial, that accepted only Brazilian debit cards for cost reasons. All credit cards and all foreign debit cards were refused. We had to pay cash - ridiculous in this day and age, particularly when one considers that even beach vendors in Rio accept cards.

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don’t be surprised, it’s the same in Germany too.

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It’s stupid. In an age where tourism makes a good amount of your customer base, you should accept any card if you’re not in a cash base country. Scamming customers to make a greater profit is unacceptable too :expressionless:

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GetNet now seems to be working with the card.

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MC or Visa? MC was always working back in 2018!

Yes, sorry, it was Visa that is now working.

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Awesome! thanks @anon33247966!

Just came back from Brazil. Revolut works at 90%. It doesn’t matter when they ask you if it is credit or debit. Ask them to try both. Most of them have more than one POS so if you experience problems just ask them to bring another one. They do not use contactless. For sure revolut won’t work with the green POS they have.

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Previously merchants in Brazil had no clue how to process a contactless transaction. All they need to do is enter the amount on their card terminal without going into any menu before the card is presented. But since Apple Pay was launched in Brazil in April 2018, plenty of merchants now know the procedure, particularly if you want to use Apple Pay.

I spoke to a Revolut employee this evening, who explained that the above problems were caused by a Brazilian acquirer failing to correctly recognise prepaid Visa cards, not only those issued by Revolut. Revolut contacted the Brazilian acquirer and the problem was fixed for all prepaid Visa cards.

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Ended up here after hearing that Revolut is coming to Brazil, and signing up for the waiting list of course!

Sadly it’s all true, lol. Contactless cards is a somewhat “new” thing around here; this is slowly changing as Nubank is rolling out contactless cards to it’s massive userbase.

Most merchants, once presented a physical card it will be inserted into the machine where you can choose between debit/credit (if a multiple card) or goes straight to the amount input screen.

There’s also a lack of pos machines without contactless features too, it’s also common small merchants to have a couple of different machines (getnet, cielo, rede, stone, safrapay, pagseguro
just to name a few)

Just throwing my 2 cents


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Whats the point of having multiple different machines? Does 1 support only mastercard, other only VISA etc? In my country (Latvia) I never see such weirdness. 1 POS supports everything here. 1 shop can have multiple machines, but usually they are identical and used only if there is more than 1 cash point in shop.

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most POS support all major issuers
some cases you have a better deal with a given issuer for a given pay method.

you can mix and match:
-time to get payed (can vary from next day up to 30 days)
-surcharge depending on pay method (0% for debit up to 4.99% for credit)
-0% surcharge for new customers on a new POS company

e.g. 1 POS to handle credit sales from Cielo, 1 POS to handle debit sales from Rede, 1 POS to handle voucher sales from PagSeguro, 1 POS to handle only AMEX cards from vendor X

POS companies here have the common goal of killing each other, the ones backed by big banks have some headstart for anything that involves lots of money, for example “next day pay” something that smaller companies dont have.

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Running into some difficulties with the Revlout card being accepted with some Pos merchants.

Here’s what I have found works:
Cash withdrawal:
-Santander bank will accept the card but charges Rs 40.00
-Bradesco accepts the card with no issues or charges.
I tried all of the other main banks and the card is always declined.

POS machines:
What doesn’t work with the Revlout visa card:
-The green one (can’t remember the name!)
-Reje

So far it’s working about 95% of the time, bar the odd moment we are stuck with a machine that doesn’t accept the card. We’ve gotten into the habit of checking what card POS the merchant has before making a purchase.

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Its useful to have VISA+MasterCard from Revolut for travels for situations just one mentioned above.

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I’ve been in Brazil for approx one year now using a Revolut Visa card, after it replaced my Mastercard. Never had any issues with the Mastercard. Issue is with some POS not accepting Pre Pay Visa.
As of Sep 19 in SĂŁo Paulo state this is my experience:
ATM Withdrawals:
Only Bank that accepts card and does not charge a fee is Bradesco. ItaĂș used to but hasn’t recognised the card recently.

POS Transactions:
Card accepted normally with all machines except for Rede (Orange/Black). Occasionally issues with Stone (green) and Pago Seguro (Yellow) but usually works.
Now before paying I also ask what machine they have or if they have an alternative to Rede. They will always, without fail, say that Rede will work with Visa and then look confused when it doesn’t and I say I told you so!

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haha, I bet you are seen as some kind of wizard to them :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’ve been to Brazil in October 2019, and the best strategy for me was to withdraw money from Bradesco Bank and use cash. Other banks don’t work, with the exception of a particular ItaĂș branch in SĂŁo Paulo. I tried my Revolut’s UK Visa several times as credit or debit and nothing worked. I need to plan a new trip for the end of the year and I’m now re-assessing my options to exchange money. Is this still a problem? Did anyone try using revolut since October?

Any recent news for payment with Visa Revolut or still the same issues?

Revoult works very well jn Brazil, if you get both the Visa and Mastercard cards. The Mastercard works 99.9% of the time with local epos machines and the visa covers the rest.