Consumidores/as endividados/as e a cidadania financeira: os dilemas consumeristas dos/as usuários/as do Proendividados

Abstract

The supply of credit to the Brazilian population has grown significantly in recent years. However, the context in which this inclusion in the financial market took place brought alarming rates of family indebtedness. This problem aroused interest in promoting actions aimed at its prevention, as well as improving the relationship between individuals and finances. One of the institutions that comprised the proposal was the Central Bank of Brazil, aiming to spread financial citizenship, a concept recently discussed, which refers to the exercise of the rights and duties of individuals with regard to financial life. Financial citizenship is supported by a context of financial inclusion and education, consumer protection, and participation in the dialogue with the National Financial System. In this sense, the experience lived as a volunteer student, in the Program for the Treatment of Super-indebted Consumers (PROENDIVIDADOS) guided the accomplishment of this work, which had as its proposed objectives: to analyze financial citizenship in the daily life of indebted consumers and, specifically, to characterize the profile of users of PROENDIVIDADOS, identifying the main problems presented by consumers and assessing the exercise of financial citizenship based on the experiences of users of PROENDIVIDADOS. The methodological path adopted was based on the qualitative approach, with participant observation as an instrument of data collection. The results show that the consumers served by PROENDIVIDADOS, most of them are retired and that they have been exercising financial citizenship in a precarious way, mainly due to the way in which they are financially included, without access due to financial education and weakened in your protection. However, these factors show the urgency of actions that expand access to financial citizenship, in its broadest sense, a job to be carried out continuously and systematically, through the cooperation of different bodies, whether public or private, with the due responsibility of the State.