For the owner of a small or medium-sized business, the traditional financial system often seemed like a castle surrounded by high walls and heavy gates. Getting credit for your bakery, workshop or store was a difficult and time-consuming process, reserved only for the big boys. But that scenario has changed radically. The walls have come down, the gates have opened and, for the first time, the power is in your hands.
This article will reveal the 5 most impactful and surprising changes in the world of credit. These are twists and turns that every SME entrepreneur needs to know about in order to unlock growth, optimize their finances and compete on an equal footing.
1. The Power Has Shifted: You Now Choose the Bank, Not the Other Way Around
The era in which SMEs were held hostage by a few banking options is over. The emergence of new financial institutions, such as fintechs, Direct Credit Companies (SCD) and People-to-People Lending Companies (SEP), has created a much more competitive and favorable market for entrepreneurs.
This shift in power has had a direct and practical impact on your business, which can have more credit options, with more speed and power of choice, which also means lower costs.
Before, it was the bank that was in charge and chose the client. Now, with all these changes, it's the SME entrepreneur who calls the shots and chooses the best partner for their business.
This means that you can look for a financial partner who speaks your language, who understands the specific challenges of your bakery, store, workshop or salon, and who offers the best conditions for your growth, rather than simply accepting what is imposed on you.
2. Your Business Can Also Offer Credit (and Profit From It)
It may seem counterintuitive, but perhaps the biggest revolution for your business is not just taking out credit, but the ability to offer credit to your own customers. This possibility, which once seemed distant, is now a powerful tool for expanding sales and strengthening relationships with your public, turning it into a real competitive advantage.
The practical benefits of implementing your own credit and recovery policy are remarkable:
- Increased Sales and New Customers
- Growth in Average Sales Value
- Customer loyalty
- Generating Financial Revenue
To adopt this strategy, it's important to create a clear credit and recovery policy that helps reduce risks and defines how to recover amounts from customers who fall behind on payments. This ensures that the company's cash flow remains healthy and that customer relationships are not lost. What's more, this practice can become a differentiator and open up new revenue opportunities.
3. Your Financial “Good Notes” Are Worth Gold
For a long time, credit analysis focused only on the negative: your history of debts and overdue bills. The Positive Registry reversed this logic. More than five years ago in Brazil, the financial system changed and began to carry out a multi-sector assessment, using data on payments made to financial institutions, telecommunications companies, water and electricity utilities and other sectors.
The Cadastro Positivo acts like a report card that celebrates your good grades: the more you honor your commitments, the more doors open up.
The practical results of this change are transformative for SMEs:
- Access to more advantageous credit conditions.
- Possibility of obtaining significantly lower interest rates.
- Easier to obtain loans and financing.
With this, companies that were previously “invisible” to the financial system can now prove their reliability and have access to fairer credit. Your good name and your financial organization have never been worth so much.
4. A new digital toolbox is at your disposal
The financial revolution is not just theoretical. It has delivered a veritable toolbox of digital tools that solve practical problems in the day-to-day running of your business or service, giving entrepreneurs back time and money.
PIX: This is the tool of agility. With it, you receive payments instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at a reduced cost. This drastically improves cash flow, eliminating the wait for boletos to clear or the delay in card transactions. And in PIX in installments, The entrepreneur receives the amount of the sale in cash, while offering the customer the option of paying in installments.
Open Finance: This is the control tool. With Open Finance, you own your financial data and decide which institutions you want to share it with. By presenting your history as a good payer in a transparent way, you increase market confidence and can receive much more personalized and advantageous credit offers.
Bookkeeping or Electronic Duplicate: This is the tool of transparency and modernization. It is born and circulates 100% in the digital environment, registered in systems authorized by the Central Bank. This guarantees greater security against fraud, standardization and complete traceability. With it, you can track and negotiate your receivables quickly and reliably, without paper or bureaucracy, and it facilitates the anticipation of receivables in an agile manner, guaranteeing the liquidity your business needs to operate and invest. The Central Bank has already started the final tests for the registrars that will operate this model, and the forecast is that the book-entry duplicate market will be up and running in the first quarter of 2026.
Together, these tools cut red tape, reduce costs and give you back precious time to focus on what really matters: your company's strategy and growth.
Conclusion
The high walls that once separated small businesses from access to credit are coming down. The financial system has become more democratic, accessible and, above all, fairer. The tools and rules of the game have changed in their favor, putting the power of choice and control back in the hands of entrepreneurs.
Tomorrow's credit is digital, of course. But what really matters is trust, person-to-person trust. It's this trust that technology is now helping to prove, paving the way for your business to grow.
Now that the doors are open, what will be the first step you take to use these new tools and boost your business?
Thanks for reading! Access other content at ANBC website.
