Publication: Brazil : Access to Financial Services
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Published
2004-02-19
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2013-07-25
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This study seeks to evaluate present levels of access to financial services, and government policies adopted which impact upon access. Based on these findings, it explores options for increased future access to financial services in Brazil. The first section highlights the core conclusions to emerge from the study, which would have implications for government policy. The second section provides a guide to the thematic scope, and content of the study, and the third section describes the findings, conclusions, and recommendations of each section. The overarching message to emerge from this study is that increased financial access would be promoted, by sound overall macroeconomic, and financial sector policy. Beyond that, the Government could, and should undertake regulatory reforms to enable financial markets to function more smoothly, and undertake targeted policies to improve access. However, care should be taken to ensure that such targeted policies allow the excluded groups efficient participation in financial markets. This would direct the focus towards a review of incentives, rather than public financing of special programs. The study points to a series of factors which affect volumes, and costs of financial intermediation. It emphasizes that despite the absence of simple remedies, there are a series of areas in which actions can be taken, which together would help expand access, and lower its costs. Findings in the study suggest that while Brazil is not under-banked in terms of bank branch presence, disparities however in financial access can be as significant between neighborhoods within a city, as between regions of the country. Nonetheless, initial measures designed to expand access adopted over the last few years, especially for the microfinance, and cooperative sectors, and later for banking correspondents, were successful, and pointed towards new modes of access to financial services. One form of alternative measures to the traditional programs include new instruments to offer possibilities for market-based expansion of services.
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“World Bank. 2004. Brazil : Access to Financial Services. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/14599 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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