Community bank creates its own e-money in Pará

In the midst of the digital revolution that accelerates the creation of fintechs throughout Brazil, a community bank created in 2009, Tupinambá, located on Mosqueiro Island, about 60 km from the metropolitan region of Belém (PA) and part of the capital, works to enter this new category of banking services by deploying e-money, a digital technology that allows you to exchange funds using just your smartphone.

Since the beginning of its activities, the bank has benefited around 9,000 people who live in the rural community of Baía do Sol.

There, residents are already used to transferring and using a local currency, the moqueio (equivalent to R$ 1), valuing what is produced in the district and preventing money from leaving the community. The challenge at Tupinambá, the only one operating in Pará, is now to make all these transactions digital.

The proposal is in line with the moment of growth in the sector. According to a study by idwall, a technology and security company, it is estimated that 184 million digital accounts will be opened in Brazil by the end of this year, which represents an increase of 15% compared to 2021.

Some factors, however, prevent faster progress in the creation of digital currencies, an initiative that began to be applied in 2019. One of them is community training, another is the difficulty of accessing the internet in the region.

Although the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) points out that Mosqueiro has 100% 2G, 3G and 4G coverage in the area mapped by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 2010, the signal is slow and even non-existent in some parts of the island , according to locals.

Only with quality internet and the guarantee that all residents have a good smartphone will it be possible to use fintech.

The self-employed Ana Carla Gomes, 45, from Baía do Sol, uses the community bank frequently, but is unable to transact with digital money because she does not have a cell phone with enough memory and the signal “fails a lot”.

In more than a decade using the service, Ana cites several benefits of the bank, the biggest one being the fact that residents can pay their bills without leaving the rural area. “Before, you had to go to other locations to pay at the lottery. It was R$8 each time and you had to go at least three times a month.

Now, I pay the bills through the bank with a small fee.” In addition, she praises the financing policy for small enterprises with the social currency and says that she borrows money from the community bank whenever she needs it.

“The Pix helped a lot. People lost their fear of using this form of payment. Our digital money is like the Pix, it leaves a smartphone and lands on another”, explains the Tupinambá coordinator, Marivaldo Vale.

Currently, each transaction generates a fee of 2%, half for the platform and half for the bank. Resources revert to the community. One advantage of digital money, according to Marivaldo, is the savings in the production of physical money. At the time when the moqueio was made, the banknotes cost from R$ 6,000 to R$ 7,000, and today it reaches R$ 10,000. With this economy, the institution would have more cash to invest in social projects, for example. The bank’s operations already include a community garden, training for women and honey production.

In Brazil, around 60 of the 152 existing community banks already have e-dinheiro, according to the Brazilian Network of Community Banks. The entity prepares didactic material with guidelines to encourage new initiatives. Master in economics and researcher in solidarity economy, Professor João Claudio Arroyo, from the University of the Amazon (Unama), considers the creation of digital currency in Pará to be a positive innovation.

“Both physical and digital social money give the beneficiary community the opportunity to take control of their own social money flow,” he says.

In addition to Baía do Sol, the community bank has financial flow in three other points on the Island of Mosqueiro and in neighboring municipalities, such as Colares and Santo Antônio do Tauá. With e-dinheiro there is the possibility of serving even other places in Pará through the universalization of the currency.

Arroyo believes that the Marajó archipelago, which includes 16 municipalities in Pará, for example, could also be reached by the initiative, since it has the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in the country and needs encouragement from the communities.

“The initiative, however, must come from the communities, otherwise it will not be community. What must be brought ‘from outside’ is information and training. Without the sustainable development of the Amazon, Brazil will not have sovereignty, and community banks already have the necessary DNA for the innovative disruption that the country needs and the region deserves”, says the professor.