Small and medium-sized banks in Brazil sold 22.6bn reais (US$9.57bn) in loan books from September 1-November 24, nearly 30% of their total combined loan portfolio, local daily O Estado de S Paulo reported, citing central bank BCB sources.
The major buyers, which have declined to name their sellers, were federally controlled Banco do Brasil (BB) with 8.2bn reais in purchases, followed by Bradesco (NYSE: BBD) with 6.2bn reais, according to the report.
Other buyers included federal savings bank Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF) with 2bn reais in purchases, Santander (NYSE: STD) with 1.3bn reais and banking deposit insurance fund FGC with 2bn reais.
Data from other banks known to have made purchases, including Itaú (NYSE: ITU), Unibanco (NYSE: UBB), Rio Grande do Sul state bank Banrisul, and Banco Votorantim, were not available.
Nearly all the exchanges have been for payroll-linked and auto-financing loan books.
Partly as a result of all the purchases, state controlled banks increased their percentage of the country's overall loan portfolio to 34.9% at end-October from 34.2% a month before, while national private sector banks saw their participation fall to 43.7% from 44.4%, according to a BCB statement.
Responding to monthly credit figures from the central bank, the national banking federation Febraban continued to express optimism about credit growth and BCB's response to the financial crisis.
"The numbers continue to prove what we've been repeating over and over again: there hasn't been credit paralysis [in Brazil]," the organization's president Fabio Barbosa said in a statement.
The situation is more of a credit bottleneck, which was brought on by companies' increased reliance on national and international capital markets at a time of international credit tightening, he said.
The total loan portfolio rose 34.6% in the 12 months ending October to 1.19tn reais, according to the BCB's monthly credit report.
No comments:
Post a Comment