The Central Bank project will use funds paid by banks to be used in the technology sector. In 2019, revenue reached R$1,402,744 million.
The Central Bank is demanding its own fund, while the Ministry of Economy is fighting to eliminate 248 public funds in an effort to eliminate so-called “earmarked money” from the budget. The Central Bank’s autonomy bill, which is currently being debated in the Chamber of Deputies, includes an article that foresees the creation of a fund to subsidize the agency’s “investments and strategic projects.”
The resources for the project will come from amounts paid by banks to the Central Bank, for use in technological systems. In 2019 alone, the collection reached R$$274.4 million. There is still no forecast as to how much will actually be allocated to the fund.
Complementary Bill No. 112, referring to the autonomy of the Central Bank, sent last year by the government of Jair Bolsonaro to Congress, was incorporated into another proposal that had been in the Chamber since 1989, No. 200, to facilitate processing.
Fixed four-year terms for the president of the Central Bank and the eight directors of the agency were one of the main points of the text. The rapporteur for the matter was federal deputy Celso Maldaner (MDB-SC). In his report, Celso establishes the National Financial System Development Fund, as a responsibility of the Central Bank. The government's proposal, submitted in 2019, did not include this fund.
According to an investigation by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and Broadcast (Grupo Estado's real-time news system), the inclusion of the article was a request from the Central Bank itself.
The intention is to “earmark” the money for use, mainly, in technology projects, one of the priorities of the current president of the Bank, Roberto Campos Neto.
The article states that the BC will manage the resources in accordance with regulations to be issued by the Central Bank itself, based on guidelines from the National Monetary Council (CMN). There is still no certainty about how the resources will be used or how much the fund will have at its disposal. According to the BC, the regulations to be issued by the National Monetary Council will determine what percentage of what is paid each year by the banks will go to the fund.
The proposal foresees that the Central Bank will report on the use of the money only to the CMN, which is made up of the president of the BC, the Minister of Economy and the special secretary of Finance of the Ministry of Economy.
The creation of the fund goes against Proposed Constitutional Amendment No. 187, which began to be processed last year in the Senate and is sponsored by the Ministry of Economy, and foresees the extinction of all 248 infra-constitutional funds (not provided for in the Constitution), which concentrate around R$$ 220 billion in resources.