Anbima imposes rules for finance influencers – 10/29/2023 – Market

The explosion of finance influencers of recent years has leveled off, but their reach has increased. The so-called “finfluencers” totaled 515 in the first half of 2023, the same number recorded at the end of 2022, but the number of followers increased by 6%, to 176.3 million.

This is what research by Anbima (Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Markets Entities) in partnership with Ibpad (Brazilian Institute of Research and Data Analysis), released last week, points out.

The number of followers is not equivalent to people, but rather to the sum of followers on all profiles of each influencer. Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube were considered.

This is the fifth edition of the survey. The current number of followers represents a 140% jump compared to the first, which covered the period between September 2020 and February 2021, in which there were only 266 finfluencers and 74 million followers.

Growth is the result of a unique moment in the Brazilian economy. With the pandemic, the Selic went from double digits to a historic low of 2% per year, leading investors to look for alternatives beyond traditional fixed income, in search of more return. And influencers were on hand to help.

Engagement is higher for content about fixed income

In 2023, the volume of publications increased by 13%, totaling 313.9 thousand videos and posts. The most discussed topic was the stock market, present in 48.9% of publications. Next, the Brazilian economy (10.5%) and cryptocurrencies (9.4%).

Average interactions (shares, comments and likes) rose 10% in the period analyzed, to 1,637. The content that most engaged was about commodities, with 2,906 interactions on average. The second most popular were day trade operations (buying and selling assets in the same trading session), with 2,520 interactions on average. In third place was the stock market, with 2,032.

During the period, specific investment products — such as the CDB from bank A or shares from company X — were mentioned 96.8 thousand times, an increase of 25% over 2022; 93% of these mentions were about variable income assets.

Engagement, however, is 118% higher when the content covers fixed income. With just 1.7% of appearances, Tesouro Direto generates, on average, 10.2 thousand interactions. CDBs (Bank Deposit Certificates), which appear in 1.2% of publications, engage even more (11 thousand).

Why, then, don’t finfluencers focus on the content that interests their audience most?

“For the influencer to make money, he needs sponsorship, after all, monetization is the interest of those who want to be an influencer”, says Carlos Castro, CEO of SuperRico and financial planner certified by Planejar.

“The problem is conflict of interest. Are you selling a product? Do you have regulatory authorization to talk about this product?”, he adds.

Among the current 515 influencers, 249 have some type of relationship with market participants, such as brokers, managers and banks, according to Anbima’s survey with Ibpad.

Among the institutions that have the most influencers, XP maintained its leadership in the last two reports with 16 partnerships, followed by Banco Sofisa and BTG Pactual, both with ten. These two had, respectively, six and seven partnerships in the 2022 survey.

Advertising partnerships, the famous ‘publis’, totaled 364 in the first half of this year. At least, as far as Anbima was able to tell. “Commercial relationships between influencers and the market are not always clearly disclosed and, therefore, in some cases, they may not have been mapped in the survey”, says the research.

To put an end to this problem, this year the association created rules for its 295 members (the majority of the market).

Rules for finfluencers include informing whether a post is advertising

With the growing influence of these professionals, Anbima created the first set of rules for the activity. They come into force on November 13th and extend to all members of the entity.

The main one is that the influencer must clearly inform that the sponsored post is an advertisement and who the contracting financial institution is.

“Verbal or written mention in the advertising itself will be considered valid, or even the addition of hashtags minimally mentioning that it is advertising and linking it to the distributor (#partnership and #nameofinstitution)”, says the Anbima manual.

The second major change is the responsibility of contracting institutions for influencers and the content conveyed. This includes the “veracity of the information disclosed and its completeness, so as not to mislead the investor” and the guarantee that the “contractors have, if applicable, the necessary certifications” to address the content in question.

Without the proper certification required by the CVM (Securities Commission), it is not possible to make investment recommendations, only provide didactic explanations, without mentioning a specific asset. For example, one must explain what CDB is without mentioning the CDB from bank X, which yields x% of the CDI. The same goes for insurance and pensions, only those authorized by Susep (Private Insurance Superintendence) can make recommendations.

To maintain supervision, institutions must make the list of contracted influencers sent to Anbima available and updated.

Thus, if the rules are disrespected, the penalty will fall on the companies. The regulations, however, do not mention any type of punishment.

For Castro, from SuperRico, influencers help in the development of the market and should not be stopped. “Regulation is important for transparency. Many teaching content and advertising are confused. But it is necessary to regulate without pruning.”

“The set of rules is modest and obvious, but it is a good start. Because it is very subtle, it is difficult for anyone to be against it, but we need to see how it will be applied”, says Daniel Dias, law professor at FGV Direito Rio.

The most relevant finance influencers of 2023:

• Sincere Economist
• The Rich Cousin
• Tiago Guitian Reis
• Hermann Greb
• Rafael Zattar
• Cristiane Fensterseifer
• Flavio Augusto
• Carol Dias Wealth In Dias
• Bruno Perini
• Gustavo Cerbasi

The most influential in each network:

Youtube

• Bruno Perini You RICHER
• Tiago Guitian Reis
• Pablo Spyer
• Dividend Club
• Love of Money

Instagram

• Carol Dias Wealth In Dias
• Coffee with Ferri
• Hermann Greb
• Danilo Zanini
• Guilherme Rossler Zanin

X (ex-Twitter)

• Sincere Economist
• Rafael Zattar
• Philippe Hermes
• David Deccache
• Luiz CM De Barros

Facebook

• Hermann Greb
• Fausto Botelho
• Flávio Augusto da Silva
• Gustavo Cerbasi
• Carol Dias Wealth In Dias