Credit and regional development: an analysis of the performance of credit unions

Abstract

The main objective of this article is to analyze the recent performance of Credit Unions (CUs) and their contribution to affect the “regional patterns of credit creation”, according to the post-Keynesian literature. The methodology used was the analysis of data from the National Cooperative Credit System (NCCS) and municipal banking statistics made available by the Central Bank of Brazil, for the period 2016 and 2021. The study used the western mesoregion of Santa Catarina as the unit of analysis. Two types of analyzes were carried out at the micro-region level, namely, the evolution of the CUs' performance in the region and their performance in the creation of regional credit. The results indicated that the regional CUs accompanied the national movement of the NCCS, with a reduction in the number of cooperatives, expansion of service points and the number of members, especially in the corporate segment. More significant was its performance in relation to the expansion of its classified loan portfolio and its funding, which grew more than banks, reaching 44% of total classified credit in the region in 2021. These results show that the CUs are assuming greater protagonism in the sector and positively affecting the “regional patterns of credit creation”.

Key-words: credit cooperatives; banking sector; rural credit; money.