Access to credit for rural producers in the North of Brazil is not easy, as interest rates have doubled due to bank fees.
Because the government's expectation To is that Banco da Amazônia reduces costs to facilitate financing.
The matter was debated this Thursday in the Chamber of Deputies.
Implemented Tariffs
For the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), producers who take resources from the Constitutional Fund for Financing the North, the FNO, are taxed more than farmers and ranchers in the rest of the country.
“We are discussing the issue of fees that were implemented by Banco da Amazônia for certain services provided.
Just like the property appraisal and then the credit analysis, debt renegotiation, the bank has established fees for all of this.
There are resources left over at the end of each fiscal year due to the difficulties we are having in obtaining credit,” said CNA vice president Assuero Veronez.
According to the Pará government, the fees charged by Banco da Amazônia reach 4%, more than half of the interest applied to investment.
In these operations, the rates are 7.6% per year for large producers and, when the extra fees are added.
Although, the percentage can reach 12% and many people end up giving up investing.
Abusive Fees
The bank denies charging abusive fees, but admits the possibility of reducing them.
“It is a natural process to compensate the bank for the service provided, and this is all set out in the fee schedule approved by the Central Bank.
We are reevaluating some tariffs, such as the renegotiation tariff and even the evaluation tariff, where we have a ceiling that previously reached R$ 75 thousand for a large project.
So now we have reduced it to R$ 30 thousand and we are evaluating whether we can reduce it a little more”, said the director of business infrastructure at Banco da Amazônia.
Representative Júlia Marinho (PSC/PA) requested a public hearing on the matter in the Chamber of Deputies' National Integration Committee. She believes Banco da Amazônia's justification is unconvincing.
"What's presented doesn't reflect the agency's reality. So, we need to look at each point individually to discuss it. We should, based on the public hearing, seek a discussion to equalize this fee collection situation," he said.
According to the Director of Credit and Economic Studies at the Ministry of Agriculture, bank fees are high, but this is not exclusive to the region.
“This year we made progress and achieved small reductions,” he said.