Latest news with #BancodoBrasil
Business Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Digital money and the art of the impossible
WHILE G7 central banks continue to agonise over supplementing physical cash with digital money, and in the case of the US, ban the central bank digital currency version outright, India has surged ahead with a mobile-based payments platform accounting for half the world's real-time payments in 2023. India's United Payments Interface continues to overcome apparently insoluble conundrums facing mature economy central banks, such as managing digital identity, balancing state and private-sector players in payments and ensuring the stability of commercial banks in the monetary system. The instant payments system has already boosted the tax take, had a transformational impact on financial inclusion and democratised the provision of financial services – with mutual fund subscription at a record high. Meanwhile, other major non-G7 economies such as China and Brazil – where state-backed digital retail payments platforms operate – have for now set aside trying to map distributed ledger technologies (DLT) onto national payments systems or sovereign money. Still, a variety of national and cross-border projects are in the works, though mired in circular discussions about regulatory, liquidity, foreign exchange and interoperability challenges. DLT – which underpins digital assets and versions of money such as stablecoins and tokenised money market funds – may also become a component of mainstream wholesale and retail finance in the wake of the Genius Act. But as statements at OMFIF's 2025 Digital money summit made clear, the technology continues to flummox many in the official sector in practical terms. Renato Gomes, deputy governor of Banco do Brasil, described the 'privacy trilemma' within DLT. Discussing experiments to build on the success of their Pix platform with Drex, he noted that trade-offs between privacy, scalability and programmability were tough, and legal frameworks remain 'incompatible' with DLT. The bank wished to remain 'technology-agnostic'. At other sessions, cross-border DLT networks between central banks and commercial banks in different jurisdictions on a unified ledger, such as Project Agora, continue to be defined. A technologist at the summit declared 'this project simply will not be possible on a single network'. The net result of it may simply be an improved set of data standards in the extant system. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Correspondent banking – a method for cross-border transactions, often criticised for being expensive, slow and inefficient compared to blockchain-based finance – already deals with the regulatory burden which DLT innovators are struggling to reinvent. A representative from a major US bank experimenting with tokenised versions of commercial bank money wryly pointed out that stablecoin-based remittances are simply regulatory arbitrage. Regional successes Reinventing the cross-border financial system by joining central banks schemes together is difficult even without DLT. While significant progress has been made with the Nexus cross-border instant payments project, the establishment of the Nexus Scheme Organisation and the harmonisation of governance frameworks are continuing efforts. Participating central banks are working out how to cater for foreign exchange – a function embedded in the cross-border commercial banking system already. There are also regional pockets of progress. An intriguing example is Buna, the Middle East's cross-border payments initiative, which has bypassed these problems. Backed by the Arab Monetary Fund, Buna has created a regional network resembling a 'unified ledger' between central and commercial banks, but in a closed and centralised system – the opposite of DLT – built on the existing real-time gross settlement platforms. While DLT might be a hard toy to handle for central banks, it is also advancing at pace as a transformational financial infrastructure – enabling cheap, quick and also cross-border payments via stablecoins such as Tether and USDC. Whether it is secure or practically regulatable or not, it is a version of money regulators will have to contend with as consumers vote with their feet, and is expected to accelerate further as an explicit aim of US policy. What is the official sector to do? Artful hacks are in the works to handle DLT-based tokenisation, which may or may not become a mainstream component of existing money and securities markets. An informal vote even among digital finance specialists at this year's Digital Money Summit could not quite find a majority to say that it would. The European Central Bank is running a twin-track approach through projects at Deutsche Bundesbank and Banque de France, with the former creating a bridge between the existing T2 RTGS arrangement and DLT-based tokens, and the latter creating a DLT-native setting for DLT-based tokens to be settled atomically in tokenised wholesale CBDC. As both banks explained at the summit, the former would smooth the path to the latter, but also continue to run in parallel with it while traditional finance persists. Pioneers at the Brazilian central bank are watching the former with an eye on replicating that model in Brazil. If these projects to integrate DLT-based private money and tokenised securities into the official monetary system are not successful fairly soon, first principles may be rediscovered the hard way. A panel of central banks at the summit quietly demurred at the suggestion that they would eventually be asked to bail out a version of DLT-based money which had become de facto systemic and then unstuck in the next financial crisis. OMFIF John Orchard is chairman, and Katie-Ann Wilson is managing director, of the Digital Monetary Institute at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF)
Reuters
20-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Brazil's Petrobras, Banco do Brasil contract export credit notes for $1.14 billion
SAO PAULO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras ( opens new tab and lender Banco do Brasil ( opens new tab have contracted two export credit notes totaling 6.5 billion reais ($1.14 billion), Petrobras said on Thursday. The notes, which mature in 2032, have sustainability commitments, Petrobras said in a securities filing. ($1 = 5.7022 reais)
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lender Banco do Brasil sees 2025 adjusted profit rising by up to 8%
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian state-run lender Banco do Brasil expects its adjusted net profit to grow by up to some 8% in 2025, it said on Wednesday, while also posting near in-line fourth-quarter results and announcing fresh dividends. Banco do Brasil said its adjusted net profit is expected to settle between 37 billion reais ($6.5 billion) and 41 billion reais ($7.2 billion) this year, from the 37.9 billion reais posted last year. The center of the target released by Banco do Brasil stands at 39 billion reais. Analysts polled by LSEG project a 2025 adjusted profit of 39.2 billion reais for the bank. One of the largest lenders in Brazil, Banco do Brasil's numbers come after its main rivals Santander Brasil, Bradesco and Itau Unibanco all published their results and projections in recent weeks. Banco do Brasil reported on Wednesday an adjusted net profit for the quarter ended in December of 9.58 billion reais, up 1.5% year-on-year and compared to 9.53 billion reais expected by analysts. Its return on equity, a measure of profitability, came in at 20.8%, down from 22.5% a year earlier and 21.1% in the third quarter. In a separate filing, Banco do Brasil announced some 776 million reais in dividends, as well as a further 1.96 billion reais in interest on equity to shareholders. It also approved a payout of between 40% and 45% to shareholders this year, compared to 45% last year. ($1 = 5.7214 reais)
Reuters
19-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Lender Banco do Brasil sees 2025 adjusted profit between $6.5 billion and $7.2 billion
SAO PAULO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Brazilian state-run lender Banco do Brasil expects its adjusted net profit this year to be between 37 billion reais ($6.5 billion) and 41 billion reais ($7.2 billion), it said on Wednesday, while analysts in a LSEG poll estimated 39.2 billion reais. Banco do Brasil ( opens new tab also posted an adjusted net profit for the quarter ended in December of 9.58 billion reais, up 1.5% year-on-year and compared to 9.53 billion reais expected by analysts. ($1 = 5.7214 reais)
Reuters
29-01-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Vale CEO meets Brazil's Lula, touts 'convergence' with government agenda
RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale's ( opens new tab CEO held his first official meeting with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday, the company said, where he highlighted that there was "enormous convergence" between its projects and the country's development agenda. Vale Chief Executive Gustavo Pimenta has been seeking to improve the mining group's relationship with the government since he took over the job in October replacing Eduardo Bartolomeo. The company has been criticized by Lula and cabinet members in the past. Lula's mining minister last year complained about a lack of investment in Brazil and delays to a repair deal over a 2015 dam collapse, which was ultimately sealed in October. In the meeting with Lula, Pimenta "discussed Vale projects that contribute to boosting Brazil to a global leadership position in the energy transition and decarbonization agenda," the miner said in a statement late on Tuesday. "Gustavo Pimenta highlighted his optimism about the company's future and the certainty that there is enormous convergence between Vale's strategic projects and Brazil's development agenda," the statement said. A source familiar with the hour-long meeting said Lula told Pimenta that Vale and the government needed to work together, noting that there had been some "noise" in the past but there was no reason for it to happen again. Vale was privatized in the 1990s. One of its main shareholders includes a pension fund operated by state-run lender Banco do Brasil ( opens new tab. Vale on Tuesday reported its highest annual iron ore production since 2018, even after a decline in output in the fourth quarter when the company prioritized higher-margin products.
