As barreiras para o desenvolvimento das cooperativas de crédito no Brasil: uma perspectiva a partir da percepção de valor dos usuários de serviços financeiros

Abstract

Although the first credit union was founded in Brazil more than 118 years ago, the market share of these institutions in the financial market remains low. Understanding the barriers which prevent further development of credit unions in Brazil and whether the value proposition of these institutions is perceived by users of financial services were the objectives this research set out to achieve. In order to accomplish that, qualitative research was carried out with nine leading executives in the segment through in-depth semi-structured interviews; desk research gathered information from websites of some of the main banks and main credit unions in Brazil to understand the value proposition of these institutions, and quantitative descriptive research collected data using a survey with 1,015 respondents from all regions of the country, who were classified as members and non-members of credit unions and as residents in cities with more than 100 thousand inhabitants and cities with fewer than 100 thousand inhabitants. The results obtained suggest that users consider Functional value attributes more important when choosing a financial institution, i.e., attributes with utilitarian characteristics. However, for credit union members, mainly residents of smaller cities, the importance of Emotional and Conditional value was also observed, which is related to the value proposition of credit unions, such as relationship and the development of society. Communication and marketing problems in addition to banking concentration in the country were identified by the research as the main barriers to credit union development. The research concludes that cooperative financial institutions present a differentiated value proposition and that this proposition is perceived by its members, especially by those who reside in smaller cities. However, there are barriers to the development of cooperatives among other audiences who do not perceive the same value delivery.