Banco Central do Brasil joins AFI network

Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) joined AFI after many months of collaboration and participating in the global network.

Financial inclusion is a strategic goal of the BCB for the 2010-2014 period. In pursuit of this strategy BCB has created a Financial Inclusion Project (Projeto Inclusão Financeira), a Financial Inclusion Committee, and organized an international forum to discuss the subject in 2009 and again in 2010.

Brazilian authorities, with strong support by the BCB, have already taken regulatory measures to promote banking access and microfinance, such as the regulation of correspondent banking, simplified bank accounts, credit cooperatives and the Microentrepreneur Credit Society (Sociedade de Crédito ao Microempreendedor, or SCM).

By joining AFI, the BCB hopes to gain access to information about the experiences of other countries that they can use to help national financial inclusion policies become more effective.