Is there still room for increasing loans to households in Brazil?

• Autor(a) principal: Alves Junior, Antonio José
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Outros Autores: Pimentel, Debora Mesquita
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Economia Política do Desenvolvimento (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://www.seer.ufal.br/index.php/repd/article/view/16276
• topic: Fragilidade financeira das famílias; Crédito à pessoa física; Pandemia; Households financial fragility; Credit to households in the pandemic

This article focuses on the acceleration of lending to Brazilian households since the outbreak of the Pandemic. The working hypothesis is that credit had increasingly played a role in supporting (a) the standard of living of families who lost income during Pandemic, (b) the level of aggregate consumption and demand, and (c) the banks' profits. However, the increase in the financial fragility of families, measured by the growth in indebtedness level, the increase in the commitment of income to debt service, and the rise in default, represents more risks for banks, which, for this reason, are led to adjust their strategies. This explains the increase in spreads and the slowdown in the supply of new loans to families. Considering the importance of credit to individuals, the article concludes that there will be negative economic and social consequences, unless jobs and family income increase, making it urgent to implement policies that contain them.