After the results of the 2022 elections for President of the Republic, Caixa Econômica Federal changed the rules and ended up cutting the release of the Auxílio Brasil payroll loan. The institution also suspended other types of credit granted to customers at greater risk of default.

To date, Caixa has not publicly commented on the decision nor announced any changes to the program's payroll loans. 

The loan modality was announced after the first round of elections and released billions of reais before the second round. However, in accordance with banks' internal guidelines and some changes in the system, there was a sharp reduction in the release of loan amounts.

On November 14, Caixa sent an internal communication to branches and bank correspondents, informing that it had updated the list of those prevented from taking out the Auxílio Brasil loan. After this procedure, the offer of new credit approvals was drastically restricted.

In addition to the Auxílio Brasil loan, three other lines of credit for customers with a greater tendency to default (“C rating” in Caixa’s classification) were also interrupted in recent weeks.

According to Caixa, the changes in loan granting rules occurred because credit granting follows internal governance criteria based on the market context, monitoring of its products and the bank's strategies.

The Auxílio Brasil loan was approved by the National Congress in July. However, the release of loans only began after the first round of elections. 

The measure enables the automatic discount of up to 40% of the amount received by Auxílio Brasil, taking into account the value of R$ 400. Caixa is the only state-owned company authorized to grant consigned credit to Auxílio Brasil beneficiaries.

In the first three years after the release of credit, Caixa made available around R$ 1.8 billion to around 700 thousand beneficiaries of Auxílio Brasil. However, the values caught the attention of the Public Ministry and the TCU (Federal Audit Court), which requested the suspension of the loan modality. 

In a document sent by Caixa to the TCU and published by the newspaper O Globo, until October 21st, the bank had released R$ 4.3 billion for the Auxílio Brasil loan.

On November 1, the bank temporarily suspended the analysis of new loans due to the processing of Auxílio Brasil payroll. 

Caixa announced that the loan would return on November 14th, but on that day changes were made that limited the number of beneficiaries who could request the loan from Caixa.

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