Resumo

During the 1970s-1990s, microcredit was provided without any regulation by diferentts organizations in Brazil. At the end of the 1990s, regulations that privileged the lending institution were created through the adoption of the minimalist model, which prioritized the sustainability of microcredit institutions. With the Lula Administration, there was a paradigm shift in which financial inclusion became one of the goals to be achieved. With this, the microcredit policy went through a reformulation, especially with the creation of the PNMPO and MPO, national programs of microcredit.

Considering that Sicoob Credivale has been operating for over 30 years in the Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys, remarkably poor regions, this paper asks the following questions: how is the portfolio of microcredit services offered by the institution, and what is the level of customer satisfaction with the services offered. Given this questioning, this study aims to analyze the relationship between the specific line of microcredit that could be offered by Sicoob Credivale and the satisfaction of its cooperative members.

Central Bank of Brazil (BCB) identified credit unions as one of the pillars for the dissemination of microcredit in Brazil because they promote the humanization of the financial system since they keep the credit interest and capital remuneration at fairer levels (SILVA; GUERRA JUNIOR, 2012); focus on local negotiations; boosting a specific economy; prevent capital outflow; helping the growth of peripheral regions(SANTOS et al., 2019); the history of credit supply for specific sectors, and especially a large number of cooperative members from the pre-free admission period.

The case study was carried out with mixed methods: semi-structured interviews with 3 managers of the Cooperative; transversal survey with 113 members; using content analysis, descriptive statistics and the Spearman correlation test as analysis methods.The qualitative stage was used to identify and understand the reasons that led Siccob Credivale to choose not to provide a specific microcredit line. The quantitative was used to identify the interest in hiring microcredit services by a verification of the satisfaction of the members and the intererst in peculiarities of microcredit lines.

The results shows that, despite the existence of financial and operational viability of the microcredit line, the values and methodology developed by the PNMPO line could not be more attractive to the cooperative members than the already existing lines within the cooperative, so its implementation was unfeasible due to inefficiently meeting the needs of this public. Moreover, in quantitative stage, a positive correlation was found between interest in microcredit and credit service satisfaction indicating that microcredit demand is being met with alternative credit lines.

It is important to emphasize the relevance of knowing the local reality to develop products that are more adequate to the needs and possibilities of the borrowers, while maintaining the viability of the financial institutions. The Brazilian model, by taking the opposite path in dealing with different realities, tends not to be efficient in what it proposes: a credit line capable of achieving the democratization of credit. In this sense, in Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys, credit lines created by Sicoob and Sicoob Credivale proved to be more adequate to serve the lower-income members.

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