Banks invest in 100% digital real estate financing – 02/24/2023 – Market

Financing a property without leaving home and in less than two weeks is a reality that advances in private banks in Brazil. Institutions increase their investments in 100% digitized procedures to reduce negotiation time and bureaucracy.

The speed of the process should reach all banks with the unification of notaries, expected to be completed this semester. Through the Serp (Electronic System of Public Records) it will be possible to remotely and electronically access information from Brazilian registry offices, in addition to registering properties, consulting data from personal records and registering powers of attorney.

“Banks are adapting so that the process [crédito imobiliário] stop being physical to be 100% digital. Currently, around 20% of financing is electronic. The physical document culture is still very present”, says Antonio Linhares, head of V/Hub, Valid’s platform responsible for the digital contracts of two of the largest private financial institutions in the country.

Anyone who takes out real estate credit through Bradesco in the state of São Paulo can sign the financing agreement, send documents and transfer the property to their name completely remotely. Through an application, the parties involved digitally sign and follow the entire process.

According to José Ramos Rocha Neto, executive director of Bradesco, with the digital signature the bank expects to reduce by up to 65% the average term —currently estimated at 28 days in the city of São Paulo— between the signing of the contract, the completion of the transfer registration of the property at the notary and payment to the seller.

The national average for banks to release the financing of a property is 40 days, according to Abecip (Brazilian Association of Real Estate Credit and Savings Entities).

Santander claims that, today, the entire process at its branches takes an average of 12 days, from the sending of the documentation to the issuance of the contract.

“It includes instant credit approval; issuance of the property report on the same day, carried out by artificial intelligence; and use of data recognition technology to complete the contract”, he says, in a note.

For three years offering the contracting of real estate credit digitally, Santander claims that it is now investing and developing tools to digitize the signature and send the contract to the notaries.

Without detailing data, Itaú Unibanco claims to have “advanced significantly in the digitalization of products and services within the real estate segment, from contracting financing, which ranges from digital signature to electronic registration, to after-sales”.

Among public banks, Caixa offers an application to contract housing finance, from registration to approval. According to the bank, currently, 3 million customers monitor and manage their contracts through the application.

“The alternative brings convenience to the customer, who will be able to closely monitor all stages of their housing process in a simple and intuitive way and, if necessary, solve pending issues through the application itself”, says Caixa, in a note.

buyer experience

IT engineering coordinator Aristides Messias Junior, 43, signed his app real estate contract in December last year. He bought a house on the plan for almost R$ 2 million without signing a physical paper, running after documentation or going to a notary.

“After the team responsible for the contract sent me the documentation, my part took longer, which was to read the entire contract. After I made that conference, my signature on the platform was a thing of seconds”, he told the Sheet.

“I was able to follow all stages of the process and also the signatures of everyone involved, there was speed for that”, said Messias Junior.

Precautions in digital hiring

The growth of digital contracting is limited beyond the paper document culture. The facility collides with the fear of many to use electronic tools to complete the biggest purchase of their lives.

The balance between automation and humanization is one of the great challenges for the sector, admits Linhares. “We need to teach the customer how to take a picture, for example.”

The security of the system is also of concern to specialists in digital identification. On January 31, the CNJ (National Council of Justice) held a public hearing in Brasília to discuss the structure and functioning of the Serp.

Present at the hearing, associations warned about the proper use of electronic signatures.

According to the executive director of the ANCD (National Association of Digital Certification), Egon Schaden Júnior, for certain acts, the use of signatures with digital certificate in the ICP-Brasil standard is essential to guarantee the long-term preservation of documents and signatures fingerprints.

For the executive president of AARB (Association of Registration Authorities of Brazil), Edmar Araújo, agents can use an existing infrastructure, with the presence of the Brazilian State, in which entities are accredited through rigorous processes, with the equipment used in issuing digital certificates certified by Inmetro.

“We have a national digital certification system ready to be used and that meets the desire to guarantee a modern, uncomplicated, convenient and, above all, secure transaction with regard to public records, including real estate”, says Araújo .