Financialization of the territory and circuits of the urban economy: connections and forms of geographical diffusion of credit modalities in Brazil and Spain

• Grant number: 23/12588-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: December 07, 2023
• End date: March 04, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Geography - Human Geography
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Betioli Contel
• Grantee: Dhiego Antonio de Medeiros
• Supervisor: Simon Sanchez Moral
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM), Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/08530-2 - Circuits of the urban economy and recent diffusion of credit: banking, non-banking activities and loan-sharking in the State of Alagoas, BP.DR

Abstract

In recent years, the banking system in Brazil has expanded its territorial presence and simplified credit policies, hiding its oligopolistic and selective nature. This process of expansion and retraction of financial institutions has directly affected less economically dynamic areas, enabling the spread of non-bank forms of credit. Thus, the recent retraction of state-controlled bank networks has greatly altered certain flows and hierarchies in urban centers, weakening access to financial services and allowing previous forms of credit supply to become more active in the country, such as non-institutional credit with exorbitant interest rates, in other words, loan sharking. However, the restructuring of the banking sector is not exclusive to underdeveloped countries. In fact, developed countries such as Spain are going through similar processes, revealing a kind of resurgence of the oligopoly in the banking sector, which inevitably results in changes in the day-to-day dynamics of credit supply. The aim of this project is to understand the forms of credit supply in the current period, both formal credit and loan sharking, and their role in shaping the circuits of the urban economy in the cities of Brazil and Spain. With regard to the scale of the analysis, it is proposed that documentary research be carried out to provide the basis; in other words, to use, above all, official statistics and technical diagnoses to form the theoretical and empirical framework. The city of Madrid, the capital of Spain and the largest financial center in Southern Europe, was chosen as the location for exploratory fieldwork to verify the dynamics of credit market agents and possible agents directly linked to loan sharking.