After the second round of elections, Caixa Econômica Federal began to limit the offer of its lines of credit and changed the analysis of payroll loans from Auxílio Brasil. The concession is now restricted to customers with a good risk analysis.
In November, the bank started releasing less money in concessions to social program beneficiaries, limiting the commitment of income to 20%, against 40% – the ceiling allowed by law and the standard amount before the elections.
According to members of Caixa’s Board of Directors heard by Sheetthe bank restricted lending in all lines of credit offered by the institution after having reached the budget limits for the year.
The total loan portfolio would already add up to R$994 billion and could still exceed R$1 trillion this year, while the bank should have borrowed R$892 billion to comply with liquidity limits. The information was released by Globo and confirmed by Sheet🇧🇷
The high demand for the Auxílio Brasil payroll contributed to the level reached. From the beginning of the operation, on October 11, until the 21st of the same month, the bank released R$ 4.29 billion in this type of credit. After the second round, demand dropped.
According to Caixa, the granting of credit obeys “internal governance criteria, based on the market context, on the monitoring of its products and on the bank’s strategies.”
“It should be noted that the bank’s lines of credit are active and that all these criteria are constantly technically evaluated and aim to guarantee the institution’s sustainability and competitiveness, which makes Caixa the largest Brazilian bank in terms of credit and number of customers”, stated the Bank.
The interest rate for beneficiaries of Auxílio Brasil na Caixa is 3.45% per month —below the ceiling of 3.5% per month set by the Ministry of Citizenship. However, it is higher than that of payroll loans for INSS (National Social Security Institute) retirees and pensioners, at up to 2.14% per month.
The loan can be made in up to two years, in 24 monthly and successive installments. If the beneficiary loses the right to the Brazil Aid while the loan has not yet been fully paid off, the debt remains. Specialists consider the type of loan for beneficiaries of the Brazil Aid to be risky.
The release of payroll hiring was used as an asset in the campaign of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), who ended up defeated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the elections.
In early November, the Minister of the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) Aroldo Cedraz denied a request by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for Caixa to stop making new payroll loans to beneficiaries of the Brazil Aid.
The request had been made by sub-prosecutor Lucas Furtado before the second round of elections. He had also requested an evaluation of the criteria adopted by the public bank for the concession, with the aim of preventing its use for purely electoral purposes.
Cedraz ordered the filing of the records, stating that the information presented by Caixa in the process “completely ruled out the alleged irregularity regarding non-compliance with operational procedures or essential risk analyzes prior to the decision to offer the payroll loan to the beneficiaries of the Aid Brazil”.
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