Uma análise do spread bancário brasileiro no período de 2001 a 2004

Abstract

This is paper discusses the Brazilian's banks spread behavior from 2001 to 2004 through theses that identify the determinants of high interest rate spreads persistence in the country (the difference between the interest charged to borrowers and the rate paid to depositors). These theses point out the effects of macroeconomic instability, reserve requirements and high taxes; high interest rate levels and volatility, high yield and liquidity of the government bonds, weak guarantees and Judiciary inefficiency besides the banks concentration and directional credit. Because of a short period of time the finality of the tests was to have a general analysis and not necessary indications of the power of each one of these theses in these years. The study of the high interest rate spreads determinants in Brazil realizes a serious GDP growth problem and low efficiency of the economy. ~he reform of the financial sectors in Latin America was not enough to raise the levels of financial intermediation, the volumes of private sector credits as a percentage of the GDP is very below than observed in OECD's countries. Brazil well illustrates the significant changes in the financial sector since middle nineties; control inflation, public banks privatization, foreign financial institutions entrance, financial sector supervision and regulation improvement and the lack of impact of these reforms on the credit volume. A basic explanation for these low volumes of credit is the high interest rate spreads charged for the banks