BCB Announces Measures to Minimize Impact of COVID-19 Crisis

Reduced capital requirements 

BCB reduced the capital requirement for credit operations for small and medium-size companies. With this change, the Risk Weighting Factor (FPR) applicable to credit operations with small and medium-size companies reduces from 100% to 85%. The change will be applied only to the new credit operations or restructured operations with benefit to the borrower and will be limited to the period from March 16, 2020 to December 31, 2020. After December 31, 2020, new operations will receive the previous treatment; however, operations entered into or restructured during this limited period will remain with the same capital requirement.

Reclassification of loans

CMN allowed financial institutions to reclassify renegotiated operations from March 01 to September 30, 2020 to the risk level they were rated in February 2020. The objective of the measure, which is effective immediately, is to avoid an increase in the volume of provision for losses related to credits renegotiated with economically viable companies. The increase in the provision impacts the supply of credit and, consequently, consumption and income, which further aggravates the economic and financial effects resulting from the fight against COVID-19. This is because provisioning expenses reduce the reference equity necessary to face the risk of the operations undertaken, thus limiting the ability of an institution to take on new risks and, consequently, grant new loans. The measure does not apply to those with a delay of 15 days or more on February 29, 2020 as well as operations with evidence that the counterparty will not be able to honor the obligation under the conditions agreed upon in the renegotiation.

Related Links (in Portuguese)

• Press Release
• Notification on Reduced Capital Requirements
• Notification on Reclassification of Loans

Keywords: Americas, Brazil, Banking, COVID-19, Reclassification of Loans, SME, CMN, Regulatory Capital, Credit Risk, BCB