Brazil bank brouhaha

The political system may be in a funk over the IBRC debacle but it seems we’re not the only ones transfixed by the nexus between state banking and big business.

Amid the brouhaha in Leinster House over the whole thing, attention was drawn to a story by Bloomberg on events far from here. “Brazil’s billionaires got cheap state bank loans for their companies,” read the headline.

It seems more than two dozen of the wealthiest Brazilians have stakes in companies that received loans or investments from the state development bank.

According to Bloomberg, most of the loan beneficiaries received “below-market” interest rates at least once.

The affair has pitted president Dilma Rousseff against Brazil’s supreme court, which has been calling for more transparency even as the president vetoed a proposal to end bank secrecy rules that conceal the lender’s business.