Facade of the Ministry of Finance.| Photo: Marcelo Camargo/Agência Brasil.

The federal government sent to Congress this Wednesday (26) three measures from the set of proposals announced to facilitate access and reduce interest rates in the credit market. The actions of “Guarantee with Social Security Funds”, “Insurance Cooperatives” and “Incentivized Debentures for Social and Environmental Infrastructures” were published today in the Federal Official Gazette (DOU).

“The initiative of the package of thirteen measures should result in expanding access to credit in a sustainable way, reducing operating costs, bad debt and interest rates on final credit for consumers, which will enable access to credit at a fairer cost for Brazilians ”, said the Ministry of Finance, in a note.

The “Guarantee with Social Security Resources” aims to expand the use of social security resources as guarantees in credit operations. The intention is to preserve social security resources and reduce the interest rate on loans, with the use of this guarantee.

The proposal envisages the possibility of borrowing at cheaper interest rates using these resources as collateral. “The measure could have a great impact, since the amount of resources available in open supplementary pension plans and insurance for people with survival coverage is greater than R$ 1 trillion”, said the folder.

The “Insurance Cooperatives” make it possible for these cooperatives to operate in other lines of insurance, in addition to those currently permitted – rural, health and work accident insurance.​

In the case of the “Encouraged debentures” proposal, the measure allows the issuance of debentures with income tax exemption for investments in projects in the sectors of education, health, public safety, among others. According to the ministry, the objective is to achieve concession projects and public-private partnerships and increase investment and the availability of public services through the raising of private resources.