The story
Founded by John VI of Portugal in 1808, in Rio de Janeiro.1
Banco do Brasil was founded in 1808 by then prince regent John (later King John VI of Portugal) to finance the kingdom's public debt when he moved from Europe to Brazil. "As a mixed institution under state control, the Banco do Brasil served as a commercial bank, the government's fiscal agent, and Brazil's first bank of issue." It went bankrupt two times in history: once during independence in 1821, when John VI returned to Portugal taking with him some of the bank's assets, and a second time in 1898.
From 1821 to 1964 Banco do Brasil occasionally performed tasks that exceeded its role as a traditional commercial bank: issuing currency, having the monopoly of currency exchange transactions and serving as National Treasury holder for the government. Such tasks were gradually given to other governmental institutions, mainly with the creation of the Central Bank of Brazil in 1964 and the separation from the National Treasury in 1987.
From 1992 onwards it was restructured as a commercial bank, using its huge geographic distribution and credit assets to leverage its redesign as a "normal" bank. In the process, tens of thousands of workers were laid off.
After decades of losses due to being used to finance some of the Brazilian Federal Government public policies, the bank became very profitable across the years. The bank is one of the key structures used by Brazilian government to restabilize the market (like preventing cartelizations in the bank interest market or stabilizing the bank credit during financial distress times like the 2008–2009 global crisis). The institution also is used to finance public programs such as the DRS – Sustainable Regional Development initiatives.
In November 2013, The Banker ranked Banco de Brasil as the top bank in Brazil based on Tier 1 capital.
From Wikipedia’s article on Banco do Brasil, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5