Brazilian economic situation

Let’s begin by a word about the economic and political context of Brazil. Brazil is an emerging economy open to the world as there are many investments and we attend a continuing foreign presence in this country. However Brazilians have to face an issue: the bureaucracy. The latter is the worst problem which foreigners will face when they arrive. There is a huge amount of unnecessary paperwork to provide (especially for business purpose). For example starting a business in Brazil takes 122 days while in other countries in South America it takes 60 days in Peru and around 30 days in Chile (according to the WorldBank analysis). But as more and more investments are made in Brazil they know that they have to improve the public administration’s efficiency. This is one of the biggest challenges of the country.
What does that mean in terms of money transfers? Is there a large amount of details needed to process? Fortunately a big step has been made in February 2013 when the Central Bank of Brazil regulated the use of IBAN (the International Bank Account Number) as an identification standard for international transfers. It eases the communication and processing of cross-border payment transactions. The system was originally set up for use in the European Union but it is now used worldwide in many countries. So since 2013 financial institutions should provide the account identification to their clients and should accept the received transfers with the use of the referred code.

Remittances figures in Brazil

According to the WorldBank, Brazil’s inbound remittances totaled 2,9 billions $ in 2015 with money primarily sent from the United States, Japan, and Portugal. Despite these big figures the remittances from the US to Brazil have decreased by half compared to 2012. Remittances are mainly small amounts sent regularly by migrants to their families back home. As Latin American countries have a large number of migrants in the United States, transferring remittances has become a huge industry in its own right.
Outbound remittances totaled nearly 1,6 billions $ in 2015 with funds mainly sent to Portugal, Spain and Japan.

What solutions exist to send money to Brazil? During years Western Union was the only company that could provide the money transferring service in Brazil with the cash-to-cash transfer solution. Now many money transfer operators allow to send money to Brazil such as Ria money transfer, Worldremit, Transferwise, Xoom, Transfast, SmallWorld, Viamericas, Vigo, Valutrans, Sharemoney and others.

Rates and Fees of remittances to Brazil

The average cost of sending money to Brazil with banks (Bradesco, Caixa, Santander, Itau, Banco do Brazil) is 6,62% of the total amount sent whereas it is around 1,5% with a money transfer company.

Below an analysis of average rates of sending 1000 USD to Brazil with MTO:

That being said, each MTO has its own requirements to transfer money. Depending on your situation, on the transfer purpose and on the amount to be sent, documents required might change. For example with Transferwise you can only do personal payments to Brazil. Transfers with a business purpose are not allowed. Both the sender and the recipient must be a privately owned account of an individual.
Thing to know: Due to Brazilian regulations a transfer above the equivalent of 10’000 US $ in Brazilian real (per day) or the equivalent of 100’000 US $ in BRL (per year) must be declared to the authorities and you may be contacted for more information about your transfers.

A word about Brazilian currency

Finally, choosing the right solution for a transfer is good but choosing the right time is best. Currency exchange rates between USD and BRL vary constantly and widely. Below the evolution of the rate during last month (minimum at 3.85 and maximum reached 4.16 BRL for 1 USD). The variation can made a huge difference in money received while transferring between the two countries. People who send money the right time can save a lot a money especially for big amounts or regular transactions.