Brasília – The Brazilian Central Bank (BC, in the Portuguese acronym) has revised its projection of growth in the country’s credit surplus this year. The estimate has been raised from 13% to 15%, according to the head of the Economic Department at the BC, Tulio Maciel.
The forecast for “credit with free funds” (operations with interest rates set freely by the borrowers and the financial institutions) has been revised from 11% to 14%. According to Maciel, in the revision, the expectation of credit to companies “weighed more” than that of credit to families. The reason is that in December 2010, the BC announced measures to curb credit to natural persons and decreased the volume of currency circulating, by raising the mandatory deposits made by banks.
As for “credit with directed funds” (operations using tariffs or funds set in government regulations, basically aimed at the agriculture, housing and infrastructure sectors), the growth estimate has been lowered from 19% to 17%.
The BC is expecting the volume of credit supplied by public banks to grow by 15% this year, rather than the previous 14% estimate. As for private domestic banks, the estimate has been raised from 13% to 15%. The forecasted growth in credit supplied by foreign private banks has gone from 11% to 16%.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
