Caixa Econômica Federal
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Caixa Econômica Federal, also referred to as CAIXA, is a Brazilian bank, one of the largest publicly owned banks in Latin America.
[edit] Financial and Institutional Information
The bank was founded in January 12, 1861 as Caixa Econômica e Monte de Socorro in Rio de Janeiro as a bank to collect savings, mostly from the poor. Over the years several similar institutions were created until, in 1967, most of them were merged into present-day Caixa.
The seventies were particularly fruitful for the bank, mostly due to its near-monopoly of popular savings, the management of state lotteries and being the only lawful pawn broker in Brazil. In the nineties, however, situation changed and the bank underwent a serious downsizing, during which thousands of workers lost their jobs.
Part of the problem was caused by the modernisation of Brazilian banking in the eighties, with tenths of other banks introducing savings accounts, states being granted rights to explore lotteries as well, a series of scandals of lottery fraud (usually against Loteria Esportiva) and the opening of the country for foreign banks. The control of inflation also hampered Caixa's results by making savings accounts less attractive.
Nowadays Caixa is the second biggest Brazilian bank (second only to Banco do Brasil) and is present in thousands of Brazilian municipalities (being third in number of branches). Caixa has more than 32 million accounts, with more than R$ 148,000,000,000 in savings or investment. Together with public funds and governmental resources, Caixa controls more than R$ 386,000,000,000 (roughly about US$ 170,000,000,000). Caixa is an instrument of public investment and social inclusion.
Caixa is still the manager of most Brazilian lotteries, especially the most popular ones, like Mega-Sena, Quina and Loteca. The profits of Brazilian state lotteries are reverted to amateur sport promotion and basic education.
