Savings withdrawals threaten real estate credit – 05/12/2023 – Market

Caixa launched this week a campaign to encourage Brazilians to invest in savings, even at a time when the application has one of the lowest returns within fixed income with the Selic at 13.75% per year.

According to the president of the bank, Maria Rita Serrano, the campaign comes in the wake of the strong redemptions that occurred in savings over the last few months, since the book represents, together with the FGTS (Fundo de Garantia do Tempo de Serviço), one of the main sources of funding to support real estate financing carried out by the bank.

“With the very high interest rate, we are having losses in savings. And, by losing resources in savings, we make investment in housing more expensive, since we have to go after other more expensive funding to continue financing housing”, stated the executive during a conversation with journalists this Friday (12) to comment on the bank’s results in the first quarter.

Despite the increase in the Selic rate, which rose from the historic low of 2% in March 2021 to the current 13.75%, the application of the passbook continues with the yield unchanged at 6.17% per year, plus the TR (Referential Rate ).

Savings remuneration is 0.5% per month whenever the Selic rate is above 8.5% per year. When the basic rate is up to 8.5%, the savings yield is equivalent to 70% of the Selic rate.

Faced with low profitability, BC data show that savings suffered a net withdrawal of R$ 6.087 billion in March. In the first quarter, the application already accumulates redemptions in the order of R$ 51.233 billion.

“Savings is a safe option that does not pay income tax and it is important to develop a savings culture”, stated the president of Caixa.

The executive also said that ongoing discussions at the STF (Federal Supreme Court) dealing with a possible change in the FGTS remuneration could also result in an increase in public investment in housing.

If on the one hand, individually, workers can have a greater gain, from a collective perspective, the change can harm the promotion of public policies, said the president of the bank.

“We are talking about a complex debate, in the sense that any change in the formulation of the FGTS remuneration can have an impact on public investments”, said Maria Rita.