National Monetary Council Resolution No. 2878, recently issued by the Brazilian Central Bank, rules on relations between banks and their clients with regard to the services and products offered to the latter.

This new regulation follows the present tendency in international economic law to offer broad legal protection to banks´ clients in addition to the Brazilian Consumer Defence Code, which formerly regulated this type of relationship. Bringing together the interests of both banks and consumers, Resolution No. 2878 is a more appropriate statute than the Consumer Defence Code.

The new rules aim at simultaneously offer legal protection to banking clients and to reduce the risk for banks when providing credit to their clients. The new procedure to be followed by banks should also reduce the number of non-performing loans.