Brazil's Efficient Payment System: A Legacy of High Inflation

November 1996 Brazil has an impressive, efficient, highly automated payment system, driven at least in part by the need for rapid payment clearing and settlement in a high inflation environment. There is much of value to learn from the Brazilian system, but also room for improvement. Brazil's efficient, highly automated payment system developed over many years in response to hyper-inflationary, or near-hyperinflationary, conditions. Listfield and Montes-Negret describe that system, its payment instruments, and its links to other networks (markets for money, foreign exchange, capital, futures, and commodities) and the government's payment (payroll, social security, and the like) and collection (taxes) operations. They examine factors that have affected the development of the system, innovations Brazil plans to introduce, and opportunities for improving the system. The principal payment instruments used in Brazil are cash, checks, cobrancas, and DOCs (Documentos de Credito). Cobrancas - barcoded remittance documents used to pay bills - are handled much like European GIRO payments. DOCs are used to make interbank credit payments, intrabank transfers of funds between a client's different accounts, and client-to-client payments between parties with accounts at the same banking institution. Although a client can initiate a DOC on paper, all DOCs are electronic and processed only by banks. Networks include direct deposit and direct debit services, automated teller machines, credit cards, and home banking services. The system is highly automated, with separate systems for clearing and settling checks and credit payments (clearinghouses); government securities, private securities, state, local, and municipal securities; government payments; and foreign exchange. Among the lessons from this review of Brazil's check-based payment system: ° Brazil's system shows that...