BB opens new credit line for small firms

Brazil's biggest bank, federally-controlled Banco do Brasil (BB), has earmarked 200mn reais (US$69mn) for loans to small companies, Brazilian daily Jornal do Commercio reported. The bank's target customer has annual revenues of less than 500,000 reais. Loans will run from 500 reais to 5,000 reais maximum with maturities of up to one year. BB began offering loans to companies with this profile, but the minimum loan to date has been 2,000 reais. Also, the interest rate for the new product will be 2.42% monthly, versus 2.98% monthly previously. The bank expects to deal out 150,000 contracts for loans of up to 3,000 reais by the end of 2004, BB's retail and distribution VP Edison Monteiro said.