BRASILIA – The president’s government Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva works to facilitate a package of credit To the small business. There will be three pillars: a new line aimed at micro-enterprises and MEIs (individual micro-entrepreneurs), with interest rates below the market average; renegotiation of debts Pronampe, the National Support Program for Micro and Small Businesses; and special conditions for companies headed by women.
The proposals, according to the Estadão, will be dealt with in a Provisional Measure (MP), which is in the adjustment phase. The Ministries of Entrepreneurship, Finance, Social Development and Labor are leading the discussions, which are seen as priorities by President Lula in a moment of falling popularity.
The measures are part of a broad set of actions to boost credit in the country – which also includes incentives for the creation of a secondary market for real estate securities and exchange rate hedge, in addition to financing for Bolsa Família beneficiaries.
But it is the initiatives aimed at small businesses that have the greatest popular appeal. In March 2024, according to data from the Ministry of Finance, 15.6 million people reported working as MEIs.
The line aimed at entrepreneurs was named, within the government, ProCred 360. It will focus on individual microentrepreneurs (MEI) and microenterprises, those that earn up to R$360,000 per year, and is being treated as “a version of Pronampe for microentrepreneurs”.
The idea is that companies have access to financing at interest rates below those charged by the market – part of the government understands that rates could be half of those charged today by banks. It is also expected that female entrepreneurs will have access to higher limits than those offered to companies led by men.
To guarantee these more affordable rates, a guarantee from the National Treasury will be necessary, which must be made possible through the Operations Guarantee Fund (FGO). It is the same fund already used to guarantee the operations of Pronampe and Unrollthe debt renegotiation program launched by the government with a focus on individuals.
The money from FGO, according to the report, will also be used to guarantee the renegotiations of Pronampe’s debts, which has a larger scope than imagined for ProCred, as it serves companies with annual revenues of up to R$4.8 million . Today, the program offers interest of 6% per year plus the basic interest rate (Selic).
The government verified that default rates remain high in the program: it is around 8%, while that observed in legal entities with free resources, according to the Central Bank, is 3.4%. This is because these are companies that were greatly penalized by the pandemic and have not yet recovered their financial health. Therefore, the aim is to focus on renegotiation.
Since the program was created, in 2020, during the pandemic, there was no such possibility, which will now be authorized with the publication of the MP. In other words, companies, based on this legal update, could use this money to pay off various debts, including those with suppliers.
“There are many people in default who are unable to renegotiate their debts; it is a defect in Pronampe that needs to be corrected by the current government”, said the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, this Wednesday, 27th, in an interview with Itatiaia Radio.
Unroll PJ
Interlocutors familiar with the conversations state that the renegotiation of Pronampe will be a kind of Unrolls Legal Entity (PJ)but with a much more simplified structure, as the Palácio do Planalto is in a hurry to launch the measure.
Instead of bringing together creditors and debtors on the same platform, as occurs with Desenrola Pessoa Física, the idea is to build a renegotiation model using the program’s existing structure.
The Ministry of Finance was warned, however, that financial institutions do not agree to be required to prove that customers used the money to settle debts. This, according to interlocutors, would increase costs and could require longer operational time.
In this way, the entrepreneur himself would have to commit, in contract, to use the resources obtained to pay off debts registered with bureaus, such as Serasa and SPC. Excluding this requirement, the launch of the program could be accelerated, as the government wishes.
If this option progresses, the expectation is that the system will gain traction quickly, since Pronampe’s operations are quite fluid. After the credit is approved, financing is usually released in about a minute. In the first days of Pronampe’s operation, for example, financial institutions registered around one million transactions in a single day.
Treasury Guarantee
The question that remains is whether the money available in the FGO will be enough to cover all these new credit actions. Members of the economic team state that there is a surplus of resources in the fund, due to lower use than expected by Desenrola PF. This is because the program, in some tracks, had lower-than-expected demand.
Furthermore, the Treasury projected that there would be a very high percentage of refinancing of debts already renegotiated. However, as discounts on outstanding balances were high, many people paid off the amounts in cash, without resorting to new loans. Therefore, there was no need to use FGO.
The renegotiation of Pronampe debts, however, will involve companies without liquidity or that are already negative. The risk, therefore, will be higher – which should generate pressure for greater Treasury coverage or higher interest rates.
It will be the level of coverage given by the government, in guarantees, that will determine the participation of private banks, both in the renegotiation of Pronampe and in loans to Bolsa Família beneficiaries, which will also have the endorsement of the FGO.
Behind the scenes, the economic team has been highlighting that there will be no new money in the fund and that it will be necessary to accommodate all these products within the figure already available.
Launch in April
The technical teams are working to ensure that the credit package for small entrepreneurs is launched by President Lula after Easter.
This Wednesday, Haddad confirmed that the MP should come out next week, with measures for small businesses and also with an authorization for the securitization of real estate debts, which are in the banks’ portfolio, and with details for exchange rate protection. for long-term investors. He also mentioned the creation of a specific line for Bolsa Família beneficiaries.
“We have to think about the credit system from A to Z, from the person who is in a vulnerable situation, who needs microcredit to emancipate themselves, to a businessman who had difficulties during the pandemic and is unable to renegotiate his debts with Pronampe, even the bank that has a portfolio of real estate securities that it wants to sell to make room on its balance sheet for new financing and is unable to do so due to bureaucratic rules,” said Haddad, in the interview with Itatiaia Radio.
Tags: Lula government prepares credit package small businesses measurements
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