Access to credit for rural producers in the North region of Brazil is not at all easy, as interest rates have doubled as a result of bank fees.
Because the expectation of the For is that Banco da Amazônia reduces costs to facilitate financing.
The matter was under debate this Thursday in the Chamber of Deputies.
Tariffs Implemented
For the Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), producers who take resources from the Constitutional Financing Fund of the North, the FNO, are taxed more than farmers and ranchers in the rest of the country.
“We are discussing the issue of tariffs that have been implemented by Banco da Amazônia for certain services provided.
As well as the valuation of the property and then the credit analysis, debt renegotiation, for all this the bank instituted fees.
There are resources left over at the end of each fiscal year due to the difficulties they are having in reaching credit”, said the vice-president of the CNA, Assuero Veronez.
According to the government of Pará, the fees charged by Banco da Amazônia reach 4%, more than half of the interest applied for investment.
In these operations, the fees are 7.6% per year for large producers and, when 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 fees.
“It is a natural process to remunerate the service provided by the bank and this is all included in the tariff table approved by the Central Bank.
We are reassessing some fees, such as the renegotiation fee and even the appraisal fee, where we have a ceiling that previously reached R$ 75 thousand for a large undertaking.
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.
Deputy Júlia Marinho (PSC/PA) was the one who asked for a public hearing on the matter to be held at the National Integration Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. For her, the justification of Banco da Amazônia is not convincing.
“What was presented does not match reality at the agency. So we need to see point by point to discuss. We must, from the public hearing, seek a discussion for us to equalize this situation of tariff collections”, 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.
