Despite a decline in interest rates since mid-1999, bank spread in Brazil continues extremely high in international terms and in recent years has stood at around 40%. This paper analyses the determinants of bank spread in Brazil, seeking particularly to analyse the macroeconomic determinants of...

Latin America has one of the highest interest margins in the world; furthermore, credit to private sector and bank spread are negatively correlated. Brazil, in particular, has one the highest bank spreads in the world - it is even so far the highest one among the Latin American economies. Indeed,...

This article examines the efficiency of the 50 largest financial conglomerates in the Brazilian retail banking system by total volume of assets, among those with at least 50 branches in the country, based on figures from their published annual reports for 2004. After providing a brief historical...