Queen of the Netherlands praises Pix, but warns of indebtedness in Brazil – 05/06/2023 – Market

Brazil has made enormous progress in financial inclusion in recent years, with great help from tools such as Pix, but the way in which the increase in the supply of credit has taken place is leading to the indebtedness of many families in the country, said the special advisor of the Organization of the United Nations for financial inclusion this Monday (5) on a visit to the country.

Queen Máxima of the Netherlands, who is in São Paulo and, later this week, will go to Brasília, compared the country’s situation in terms of financial inclusion today and at the beginning of the century. She cited World Bank data showing that 84% of adults in Brazil had access to a formal financial account, up from 70% in 2017 and 56% in 2011.

“The implementation of something like Pix helps tremendously (for financial inclusion), this open finance that is being implemented now will also help a lot”, she told journalists, on a visit to Santander Brasil, in São Paulo. The queen also visited the offices of Itaú Unibanco and PicPay, as well as other financing companies.

However, she also drew attention to the country’s debt level.

“When we have a lot of credit, you can also have what we call over-indebtedness. So, unfortunately, in Brazil at the moment there is a lot of credit, for which many families are in debt and not having financial health.”

In April, the country had about 71.4 million people in a situation of default, an increase of 732 thousand compared to the previous month, according to the study Map of Defaults and Debt Negotiation in Brazil, by Serasa. The financial balance sheets of banks have also shown higher levels of default in recent quarters, especially given the level of interest rates in the country. The Selic is currently at 13.75% per annum.

“It’s really important at the end of the day that financial inclusion makes people’s lives better, not worse,” said Máxima.

According to her, the idea of ​​talking to private banks and, later this week, to members of the government, in Brasília, is to promote collaboration to improve the financial health of Brazilians.