Every month, in millions of Brazilian kitchens, the same scene plays out: the bank app open on the table, a credit card bill that does not add up and, one tap away, the option to pay only the minimum and push the rest into next month. That button is home to the most expensive credit in the country, and it was the subject President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva chose to address in the final stretch of the election campaign.
The average interest rate banks charge on revolving credit card debt reached 445% a year in August, the highest on record, according to Central Bank data reported by G1. The product, known in Brazil as rotativo and triggered whenever a customer cannot pay the full balance by the due date, racked up R$ 311 billion in new lending between January and August, up from R$ 266 billion in the same period of 2025, and is already closing in on the R$ 403 billion lent in all of last year.
On Thursday (October 1), Lula said he is discussing with the Central Bank a ban on anyone holding more than one credit card, as a way to curb record household indebtedness. According to Poder360, the remark came in an interview with the Flow podcast. To defend the measure, the president told the story of the father of an autistic boy who received a fourth credit card at home, spent R$ 80,000 and ended up owing the same amount.
"We need an overhaul of the Brazilian economy. Galípolo knows we need to bring some morality to this credit issue; we cannot allow society to go into debt in the most irresponsible way possible," Lula said, according to G1, referring to Central Bank president Gabriel Galípolo.
A habit that grew after the pandemic
The numbers show the scale of the problem. According to the Central Bank, 101 million people used credit cards in Brazil earlier this year, nearly half the population, and about 40 million carried revolving card debt in January. With interest at record levels, the default rate on the product stood at 63.5%: of every R$ 100 lent, more than R$ 60 went unpaid. In March, Galípolo himself said credit lines designed for emergencies are being used as part of family income, which he said called for a "structural discussion" to offer more suitable alternatives.
The surge is recent. Between 2012 and 2020, annual revolving credit lending never topped R$ 225 billion, and 2020 and 2021 were marked by Auxílio Emergencial, the extraordinary cash transfer paid during the pandemic. Once the benefit ended from 2022 onward, amid the return of heavier inflation, which passed 10% in 2021 and ran near 5.8% in 2022, new lending took off and went beyond R$ 400 billion in 2025.
The government has already tried to fence in the problem from other sides. Since January 2024, under a law passed by Congress, revolving card debt can no longer more than double: someone who owes R$ 100 will never pay more than R$ 200 in total, including interest and charges. Last year the government launched payroll-deductible credit for private sector workers, with rates between 24% and 56% a year and R$ 130 billion released through June, although consumer protection groups advise caution about using the FGTS severance fund as collateral. In May came Novo Desenrola Brasil, the debt renegotiation program, and last week a new round expected to renegotiate R$ 150 billion, with the federal government buying bank portfolios at a 90% discount. Even so, overall bank delinquency rose to 5% in August, the highest level in the Central Bank's revised historical series, which began in 2011.
Whether the idea of limiting each person to a single card will leave the campaign trail and become regulation, the government has not yet detailed. Until then, the kitchen scene stays the same: the glowing screen on the table, the minimum payment button waiting for the next tap, and a debt that, at 445% a year, never fits into the following month.