Provisional measure creates a program to expand access to credit in Brazil – News

04/24/2024 – 12:20

The federal government published Provisional Measure 1213/24, which establishes the Believe Program, aiming to restructure part of the credit market in Brazil.

The MP foresees a set of actions aimed at different segments, especially families in situations of socioeconomic vulnerability and small businesses.

The text is already in force, but to become law it needs to be analyzed in a mixed committee, and then voted on in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. See below the main points of the provisional measure.

Microcredit
The MP establishes a microcredit program (operations worth around R$6,000) for those enrolled in the Single Registry (CadÚnico).

The program will provide guarantees for loans taken out by the target audience, carried out through the Operations Guarantee Fund (FGO), which will receive R$1 billion. At least half of the grants must be aimed at women.

Develop Small Businesses
It is a version of the Desenrola Brasil Program aimed at renegotiating debts of individual microentrepreneurs (MEIs), microenterprises and small businesses.

Debts renegotiated in 2024 may be recorded as presumed credit by banks from 2025 to 2029. Presumed credits are a type of government incentive granted to financial institutions. The measure encourages banks to renegotiate debts.

Pronampe
Companies in default with the National Support Program for Micro and Small Businesses (Pronampe) will be able to renegotiate debts even after the guarantees have been honored, when institutions take assets given to cover defaults.

Procred 360
The MP establishes special conditions for rates and guarantees, through the FGO, for credit operations aimed at MEIs and micro-enterprises, to be disclosed. The government announced that interest rates will be set at Selic plus 5% per year (which is equivalent to just over 1% per month).

Peac
The monetary commission of companies that took out a loan under the Emergency Credit Access Program (Peac) will be limited to 20% of its traditional value in 2024, growing in the following years. This commission is charged by BNDES to provide guarantees for Peac loans. The measure aims to reduce credit costs for entrepreneurs.

Real estate credit
The MP allows the Asset Management Company (Emgea) to acquire credits and securities from the real estate market to incorporate into its portfolio. The operation increases the liquidity of this market.

State-owned linked to the Ministry of Finance, Emgea was created to manage “bad” assets of banks that failed in the 1990s.

Sustainable projects
MP 1213/24 also establishes the External Private Capital Mobilization and Exchange Protection Program (Eco Invest Brasil), which will offer exchange rate protection solutions to foreign investments in sustainable projects in the country.

The target audience is foreign investors, sustainable project companies, the financial market and government entities involved in sustainability.

Eco Invest will also have credit lines to finance investment projects aligned with ecological transformation that use foreign resources.

Report – Janary Júnior
With information from the Ministry of Entrepreneurship
Editing – Rachel Librelon