This Verisk Financial Research Brazil Country Report delivers commentary on Brazil's retail banking and payments landscape supported by historic and forecast data. The report gives detailed insight into the market's players, including cards networks, issuers, acquirers, banks, and PSPs, plus the Brazilian payments infrastructure, digital and mobile payments developments, demographic and consumer trends, regulatory drivers, credit card profitability, and more. Reports are available in both English and Portuguese language versions.
Key Points
Demographics and the economy
Payments environment
Cards market
Mobile payments
Profit pool
The networks
Key retail banks and issuers
Acquiring and processing
Online acquiring
Regulatory and other cards market information
Appendices: Card Payments Data
Appendix I: Demographics and the economy
Appendix II: Payments environment
Appendix III: Cards market
Appendix IV: Profit pool
Appendix V: The card networks
Appendix VI: Key retail banks and issuers
Appendix VII: Acquiring and processing
Appendix VIII: Online acquiring
Demographics and Economy:
Median income increased by 8.8% from 2012 to 2019, building on an even greater increase from 2000, thus helping to alleviate one of the most acute income-distribution inequality problems in the world.
Payments Environment:
The retail payments environment in Brazil is evolving in groundbreaking ways. For example, the value of payments by card now outstrip the combined value of ATM cash withdrawals and payments by cheque.
Cards market:
Payment cards are relatively well embedded among Brazilian consumers. While debit cards have gone well beyond the theoretical saturation point, the reality is that only three in every five adults possessed a debit card at the end of 2018.
Mobile Payments:
With the growth in smartphone use, mobile money has been superseded by neo-banks and fintechs such as Neon Pagamentos. These digital banking providers can provide a more sophisticated service at a lower cost than the e-money providers.
Profit Pool:
Despite high interest rates (which discourage borrowing via card), Brazil remains a highly profitable market that still has room for further development. Profit before tax is estimated to be around $8 billion for 2019, which amounts to a profit per card of $52.
Card Networks:
Visa and Mastercard have dominated the credit cards market for decades. However, as the domestic scheme Elo gains momentum, the Brazilian credit cards landscape is likely to continue changing. Visa Electron and Maestro have traditionally dominated the debit cards market in Brazil.
Key Retail Banks and Issuers:
The four largest banking institutions – Bradesco, Itau Unibanco, Banco do Brasil and Banco Santander – control the Brazilian credit cards market. As of December 2018, these issuers held almost two-thirds of credit cards in issue, with Bradesco as largest issuer, followed by Itau Unibanco and Banco do Brasil.
Acquiring and Processing:
Cielo and Rede continue to dominate the Brazilian merchant-acquiring market with a combined 71% market share of total acquired billed volume. The estimated number of merchants accepting credit cards in Brazil reached about 4.8 million at the end of 2018.
Online Acquiring:
Total card not present (CNP) billed volume in 2018 reached an estimated $51 billion, with credit card billed volume accounting for 94% of the total. The adoption rate of information technology by Brazilian consumers has been a key driver.
Regulatory and Markets Information:
Banks operating in Brazil belong to an industry group, the Federacao Brasileira de Bancos (Febraban). Uniting public, privately owned and foreign-owned financial institutions. There is a similar association of Brazilian credit card companies: Abecs.
Verisk reports providing invaluable market and competitor intelligence on payments cards, e-money, acquiring/processing, retail banking, and consumer credit in Latin America. A dedicated team of analysts and researchers use both primary and secondary source data and conduct in-depth interviews with senior industry executives and Latin American experts.
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