Chamber approves PL of Desenrola with interest limit on credit card revolving

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Desenrola is the federal government program that facilitates the renegotiation of consumer debts with banks

Brasilia DF) – The Chamber of Deputies approved this Tuesday (5), the Desenrola bill, a government debt renegotiation program, which also deals with interest on credit card revolving. The vote was symbolic. Only the Novo party opposed the project.

Desenrola is the federal government program that facilitates the renegotiation of consumer debts with banks. During the processing of the provisional measure, there was articulation to determine a limit for the fees charged by the operators in the revolving credit, triggered when the invoice is not paid in full on time.

The opinion, presented by the rapporteur, Deputy Alencar Santana (PT-SP), includes an article to limit interest on revolving credit cards and installments with interest to 100% if the financial sector does not present a proposal for self-regulation within 90 days .

The text, however, does not deal with the end of interest-free purchases in installments, a modality pointed out by the banks as responsible for the high rates – which reached 437% per annum in June. The banks pressed for the inclusion of the measure in the opinion, but the rapporteur resisted.

“Credit card issuers, as a self-regulation measure, must submit to the approval of the National Monetary Council, through the Central Bank of Brazil, limits for interest and financial charges charged on the outstanding balance of the credit card invoice in the modalities revolving credit and installment credit”,

says the report.

Until June, the revolving rate was 437% per annum and interest-bearing installments, 196.1% per annum. Since 2017, after 30 days of permanence in the revolving, banks are obliged to transfer the debt to installments with interest, but it was not enough to lower the rates.

According to evaluations by technicians from the economic team, interest-bearing installments do not only rely on the renegotiation of revolving debts, which, if considered individually, would have an average rate very similar to the most expensive interest-bearing modality in the credit market in Brazil today. Therefore, just putting an end to the rotary would not completely solve the problem of abusive interest.

Replacing revolving credit with billing in installments is practically a consensus among market agents, and the establishment of an interest limit was already being discussed. The model is the same as that adopted by the United Kingdom, which limits interest on certain types to a percentage of the customer’s debt.

According to one source, the most likely scenario being discussed by sector agents is limiting interest to 100% of the debt value, but the issue is still open. However, this source considers that the rapporteur’s text was confused, and that this is a point that should not be the result of self-regulation.

The financial sector came to the conclusion that the end of revolving credit will help reduce defaults on credit card delays, but banks are trying to convince retailers to limit interest-free installments.

Publicly, banks and card industry associations rule out ending the product. Alencar stated, however, that there is no point in limiting installments and defined the mechanism as a “conquest of Brazilian society”. The topic is not included in his opinion.

*With information from IstoÉ

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