Our emigration: life and business in Brazil

Russian Alexei Dymov for six years (from 2009 to 2015 year) led the project for the creation and development of the terminal payment system in Brazil.

Photo: Facebook / Alexey Dymov

He shared his impressions of life in this country in a column for publication. VC.

It is now no longer accepted to add the word “terminal” to the phrase “payment system”, since terminals are perceived as one of the ways to deposit money, and in 2009, this was not the case yet. 2009G was not in the 4 year, so payment via mobile apps or instant messengers was not so common, so the work was innovative and interesting, and life in Brazil is very bright.

Advantages of life in this country:

• Food. Good restaurants, fresh fruit all year round, quality products in stores, good coffee, fresh juices everywhere (the problem is to find others). A variety of cuisines from different countries, for example, excellent Japanese and Italian cuisine. In terms of variety and number of restaurants, Sao Paulo is second only to New York.
• Service sector. Decent service, often of a very high standard. Not without exception, but the overall level is high in more or less large cities. In small - as you will get. It happens that everyone is very polite, but terribly slow and dull.
• Medicine. Expensive but good. A normal policy for one person 30 years is worth more than $ 100 per month. Children's policy is more expensive, for people in age - much more expensive (up to $ 500 per month).
• Football. To whom plus, as a spectacle, to whom a minus, as traffic jams and non-working staff on the day of games.
• Housing. High level of comfort. In modern homes a lot of services, ranging from the gym, swimming pool, hall for pianok and to the underground parking, cleaning, playground, and so on. The colorful picture is diluted by the level of performance with leaky windows, drafts and cold winters, always falling off details everywhere, lack of centralized hot water supply, often an idiotic layout and extremely complicated organization of any repairs.
• Clean toilets. A separate item. No comments. Toilets - the face of the nation. And they are on top.
• Traffic organization. Separately, we note the parking system. Expensive (although not for everyone), but the system is there and it works fine.
• Intercity routes. They are nice and comfortable, unlike city roads, which are creepy crap and disgrace.
• Climate and ecology. A moot point. There is no winter with snow - this is a plus, but at home there is an oak, this is a minus. In Russia, I do not freeze at home in the winter and even air out the room periodically, but here I sleep in clothes and am ready to slam the windows tightly. But, probably, the climate still pleases.
• Friendly friendly people (if they are not on the machine), ready to help in the little things. A definite plus.
• Discipline. Brazilians do not take places for the disabled and the elderly, do not climb into special ticket offices for these categories of people.
• Ramps, lifts and other amenities for people with disabilities. It would be a big plus if the infrastructure would allow to get to these well-appointed zones without any problems. But in fact, a healthy leg will break in these gullies. In some places these facilities can be used, although the first (and the last) time when we tried to take a walk with our son in a wheelchair along the street, we had to carry both our son and the wheelchair.
• Attitude to children and parents with children. Children love, with them everywhere easily and calmly, even if they scream and cry. Attitude is super. A huge plus.
• Everywhere organized electronic queue. In addition, waiting is well-organized everywhere or almost everywhere: chairs, sofas, benches, magazines, TV with retarded local shows and criminal news.
• Developed banking system and various related industries, the benefits of which are leveled by staff who do not know how to handle them, and a bunch of restrictions imposed by bureaucrats who are afraid of everything and everyone. Plus a controversial, since in the same Russia with a much less developed system of banks, everything works better and faster. We implemented such a scheme: set a limit for accepting payments, letting them work on credit, otherwise in Brazil there was no way with our model, twice a week they generated bills for payment through the banking software, received them in their system using the API, transferred them to client software on the spot, the client printed a barcode account on a regular thermal printer, paid at a bank (client bank), we saw online payment on our bank account and, using another API, we unloaded our account system and checked the client’s limit. If the client did not pay, then we automatically blocked his account, and information about the unscrupulous agent automatically flew to the central Cartorio (this is something like our notaries, but everything is not so with other functions), from where the client received a notification that he got. If the client paid for the service along with the fine, then everything is fine, if not, then he received a note on his TIN that he was a scoundrel. It flew to the CII, and no one serious worked with it. And all this is in automatic mode.
• Everywhere accept credit and debit cards. I witnessed how a woman came from the favela to the office of a telecom operator to sell honey and accepted payments by cards at the POS terminal.
• Family values ​​as a universal standard. Promotion of family values ​​and the institution of the family as a whole, legislative acts designed to strengthen the family and much more in this direction.
• Nature. In particular, Amazonia and the ocean. Most likely, this is not a plus, but just a feature, but for us it is new and original, so I also wrote it down here.
• The hand does not rise to write in the plus girls. They are very specific, you need to get used to them.
• Big country with big cities. For urbanists. But at the level of perception, Moscow feels a much bigger city than Sao Paulo, which in some places is perceived as a village.
• Carnivals and gay parades. Still, it attracts a comparable number of viewers and passes with a comparable scope. And there, and there are many transvestites. Plus the gay parade is that you know that he is passing.
• San Paolo - A convenient platform for traveling in Latin America.
• Feeling relaxed in everything, including work. For employers - a huge minus. It is even difficult to describe. In the period between the holidays 1 and 9 in May in Russia work better than in Brazil in the period between the New Year and the Carnival (the end of February and the beginning of March, depends on Easter). Nothing serious in this period is not worth planning. Or you can plan, but assume that the performance will be 50%, and all that is better, be considered a positive risk.
• Brazil is a melting pot for all nationalities. High degree of integration and assimilation of migrants. I witnessed a very loud disassembly between Brazilians of Arab origin. It was near the restaurant, and the public crowded around the windows and was afraid to go outside. To be honest, at this level, “I’ve been hanging your pipe,” we should have called an ambulance. They shouted and dispersed. For six years I have not seen a single fight on the street.
• Scholarships in universities and pay in universities.
• Sports fields freely available, clean and whole.
• Good and inexpensive manicure and pedicure.
• Cheap good housekeepers.
• High degree legislative protection and social support for workers.
• High salaries for educated professionals. Much appreciated MBA.
• Really working mortgage programs for young families with low income.
• Deep internet penetration, the ability to perform many operations from home.
• Paradise for the photographer (except for the purchase and maintenance of equipment).
• Well-developed dentistry. Prices are lower than in Moscow, and the quality is better.
• Public Transport It runs from 5 in the morning until half past one in the morning.
• Drinking culture. For all the time I saw only a few drunk people on the streets.

Photos from the personal archive of Alexei Dymov

All the problems describe is not possible, there are a lot of them. I do not take the usual problems that arise for everyone who moves to another country. I will describe the most important ones, in my opinion, which sometimes are just besyat.

1. Almost no one and almost never admit their mistakes. You can not hear: "Yes, it is our fault, we are already correcting." The server fell, you call the data center, you swear, they say that everything is fine on their side, but after one minute the problem is fixed.
2. Almost no one and almost never recognize someone else right.
3. Almost everyone almost everything on the drum.
4. Almost everything that is different from the accepted level (faster, better, cleaner, more beautiful, and so on) is very expensive, the rest is just expensive.

I write the word “almost”, as there is a certain percentage of sane and partially sane people. The huge problem faced by all wage earners from other countries in Brazil is the inability to explain these and many other problems to employers.

They simply refuse to believe, thinking that they are being deceived (with deadlines, with prices, and so on). Example: they took a contract with partners from competitors, as the partners confused the address of the recipient. It was saved by the fact that we are in good relations with people with whom we must compete (but the partners do not know this). The human factor here can cut down any undertakings at any time.

It must be added that in general human terms, the people here are wonderful and kind.

If you think that all this can be applied to Russia, which means that the problems are insignificant and familiar, you are very much mistaken.

Photos from the shopping center: they are asked not to occupy space with telephones, badges and car keys.
Photos from the personal archive of Alexei Dymov

About crime

Crime here is different. All business developed in poor areas that are located near the favelas or in the favelas themselves. Sometimes I found myself walking through the favela like an idiot, wearing a suit and holding an expensive phone to my ear. People looked askance, but nothing bad happened to me.

Upon arrival, I, of course, like everyone, was afraid of places such as fire. For example, driving along the highway to the sea, I saw a big favel on the right and left of the road and tried to slip it faster - just in case. A few years later I traveled by car from this very favela to the road and did not think that it was something unusual or dangerous.

It was so that we - four adult dudes in the car - were trying to get out of town from a motorcyclist who noticed our jackets and expensive phones. And it was uncomfortable.

Upon arrival at almost any parking you usually do not close the car, but simply put the keys on the windshield outside or on the wheel so that the parking attendant can rearrange the car, if necessary, since the parking lots are filled to capacity. Any car. They do not steal. I never noticed that something was stolen from the car, although they say that they can take a trifle. Bag with a laptop is usually shifted to the trunk.

The employee went to the point to paste over the terminal, but it turned out that the owner had just been shot.

On the left - hacked. On the right, they blew up an ATM next door, and the terminal suffered as it stood nearby.
Photos from the personal archive of Alexei Dymov

About banks and money

I will give examples:

• Unsecured loan to customers of a bank with a credit history (individual) - 4,5% per month (it is considered that 3%, but 4,5% is issued).
• The percentage for using the funds on a credit card over a period of more than one month is 11,4% per month.
• Unsecured loan to a legal entity that uses the bank as the main one for operating activities (against turnover) - 2,95% per month.
• Overdraft account for a legal entity - 8% per month.
• The line of credit with a security on the 24 month for a legal entity - 2,33% per month.

Maybe the indicators have changed a bit now. This is data for 2014 year. But I doubt, of course.

About pricing in Brazil

In short, everything is expensive.

All local cheaper than imported. Almost all products and brands are unknown to us. Most goods for the domestic market in the country are produced from cowards to cars and airplanes.

Cellular communications, Internet, server rental, components for computers, computer hardware itself - everything is very expensive. Cellular communications and the Internet are several times more expensive than in Russia. Quality is no better.

Rental housing is expensive. At the same time, not having lived in the country for some time, you will not be able to rent a normal apartment, as they usually ask for several identity documents, for example, CPF (TIN) and bills for electricity, gas, Internet and from the bank. And if you have not lived in the country, then you can not have this.

There is a class of housing that can be rented without these documents, but it will be more expensive, and it is almost impossible to remove interesting options in this way.

In addition, they usually rent out without furniture, so another problem emerges here. Purchase in foreign online stores.

All credit card purchases abroad are subject to tax. Imposto Sobre Operações Financeiras (IOF) - 6,38%. It is you who pay your bank when making payments with a credit card.

Purchases of up to $ 50, including shipping and insurance, are not taxable if the recipient and the sender are individuals.

Purchases up to $ 500 are taxed at 60%. The tax base also includes shipping and insurance. The tax is paid either at the post office where the parcel arrived, or, if you use courier delivery, through the invoice that the delivery company sends you.

Purchases in the amount of $ 500 to $ 3000 are taxed at 60%. The base for taxation is the same. To pick up the goods, the recipient must provide a simplified customs declaration (Declaração Simplificada de Importação (DSI) and pay the tax. This is also done in the post office. If courier delivery is used, then the delivery service shall submit the declaration and pay taxes. You are invoiced for payment.

Tax-free: books, magazines, periodicals on paper. When importing medicines you will need a prescription.

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