Payment institutions will be able to operate in the foreign exchange market as of September 2022, according to regulations approved by the Brazil’s government and released by the Central Bank.
Currently, only banks, brokers and securities distributors are authorized to operate with foreign exchange in the country. The exchange operations of payment institutions, a category that includes credit card and prepaid card issuers, can be made exclusively by electronic channels and limited to US$ 100,000 per operation.
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“We hope to bring more competitiveness, access to credit operations by digital means,” said Lucio Oliveira, from BC’s Prudential and Exchange Regulation Department. According to him, the new rule is expected to stimulate the creation of new business models.
Payment institutions already licensed to operate by the Central Bank will need to file specific requests with the autarchy to operate with foreign exchange.
The new regulation, approved by the National Monetary Council (CMN in Portuguese), brought other improvements to the rules of international payments and transfers.
As of October 1st this year, non-banking institutions already licensed to operate in the exchange market, such as brokers and distributors, will be able to use their foreign currency accounts held abroad to settle operations carried out in the exchange market. Today these institutions need to maintain accounts in banks in Brazil to settle exchange operations.
The Central Bank has also allowed that prepaid payment accounts in Brazilian real may also be held by non-residents, who are currently only allowed to keep deposit accounts in the country.
