Financial Cooperativism as a Vector of Regulatory Effectiveness: financial citizenship in the agenda of the Banco Central do Brasil

Abstract

This professional-technical article examines the extent to which financial cooperativism contributes to the effectiveness of the financial citizenship agenda of the Banco Central do Brasil, structured around inclusion, education, protection and participation. It adopts a legal-institutional approach that incorporates the economic theory of ownership and transaction costs to explain why the member’s dual position as owner and user of the enterprise may reduce market-contracting costs without eliminating the costs of governance, monitoring and collective decision-making.
It proposes a fourfold typology of asymmetries – informational, cognitive, territorial and relational – and a model
that distinguishes institutional attributes, implementation mechanisms, activation conditions and expected regulatory
effects. Official data on the National Credit Cooperative System, as of December 2025, show strong territorial reach and segment expansion, but also regional inequality, a recent rise in problem assets and low female representation in governance bodies; scale, therefore, cannot be equated with the quality of inclusion. The article concludes that financial cooperativism has relevant institutional capacities for implementing financial citizenship, conditional on the activation of democratic, educational and relational mechanisms and on supervision and outcome measurement.
The evidence is stronger regarding inclusion and territorial reach than regarding effects on education, protection and participation, which defines the limits of the claim and informs the regulatory and research agendas.