The INSS (National Institute of Social Security) has started to block the monthly subscription of credits allocated to retirement and pensions in order to protect Social Security benefits against fraud.
The measure came into force in November, after a recommendation from the TCU (Federal Court of Auditors) and before the publication of bill 1.546/2024 – which provides for a monthly blockage.
The payday loan is a loan taken out by INSS retirees and retirees with a direct discount on the service. It is possible to commit up to 45% of monthly income — 35% on the personal loan, 5% on the credit card and 5% on the benefits card — and pay installments up to 84 months (seven years).
The subscription to payday loans was already automatically blocked for new policyholders for a period of 90 days after the benefit was granted. During this period, the beneficiary could not take out a loan from banks or financial institutions if he did not release it via the Meu INSS application or website.
With the new rule, the blocking is carried out every month, and the authorization to take out loans only occurs after unlocking by the insured, which requires biometrics.
The measure should bring more security to contracts, believes Liliane Beil, president of Coopernapi (Sindnapi Credit Cooperative, National Union of Retirees and Elderly People). The association, as well as banks and financial institutions, were informed at the end of November by Dataprev (Pension Technology Company) of the rule change and support the measure.
For her, the rule will make operations more transparent. “This is the way to give more security to retirees. If they want to take out new loans, they will have to release them again,” he explains.
“Each operation will require confirmation from the insured. The use of proxies and telephone calls for this process is also prohibited.”
When the new law is sanctioned and published, other security measures will come into force, such as the ban on taking out payday loans or unblocking by telephone or proxy. The retiree can contest the contract with the Meu INSS or with the Social Security agencies.
The institute will have to maintain biometric registration terminals in all branches, suitable for elderly and disabled people.
According to the INSS, the new security rules with monthly blocking of benefit recipients respond to the recommendation of the TCU (Federal Court of Auditors) after a process initiated by the control body in 2024, and integrate a series of other actions with the aim of increasing control over the granting of allocated benefits.
In May, Social Security blocked all benefits and the granting of payday loans became limited and is only carried out after biometric authorization. At the time, there was a 67% drop in total loans granted by banks and financial institutions.
The measures also came under pressure after Operation Without Discount, launched by the Federal Police in April this year against unjustified reductions in INSS benefits, which uncovered a network of entities that contracted debts on pensions and pensions without the authorization of policyholders.
The ABBC (Association of Brazilian Banks) declares its support for the new rule of automatic monthly blocking of benefits for the subscription of payday loans and confirms that the measure is already applied by the INSS and Dataprev. For the entity, the change increases process security and complements previous fraud prevention actions.
Febraban (Brazilian Banking Federation) states that it has maintained a permanent dialogue with the INSS, proposing measures that allow employees to be hired safely. “All institutions associated with Febraban are already working to adapt their processes and communicate with customers through their service channels,” the federation says of the new blocking rule.
Recipient hired in 2025
Data from the ABBC and the Central Bank indicate that between January and October 2025, 60.8 billion reais of INSS loans were granted, a volume 32% lower than that recorded during the same period in 2024.
During the year, 18.8 million operations were carried out, reaching a financial volume of 279 billion reais in October, with approximately 65.5 million active contracts and approximately 16 million policyholders served. The total loan amount is 4% higher than in the same month of 2024, when the financial volume was 268.2 billion reais.
Banks promote self-regulation
ABBC and Febraban emphasize that the self-regulation process is one of the main means of protecting policyholders against undue credit and harassment by banks and financial institutions.
Self-regulation of payday lending, which ends in January 2026, has set rules to prohibit commercial harassment, increase transparency and train correspondent banks. Since its creation, more than a thousand companies have been warned, 810 have been temporarily suspended and 113 have been prevented from operating, totaling almost 2,000 administrative measures applied.
Febraban data shows that, since the start of the rules until November 2025, 1,983 administrative measures have been applied to banking correspondents, of which 113 have permanently lost the right to carry out their activity and are prohibited from providing services to banks. Additionally, seven loan officers were blocked.
To put an end to unwanted telephone calls and commercial harassment, the banks linked to the federation do not remunerate their correspondents in the event of new transactions from consumers who have been part of the “Don’t Disturb Me” service, which prevents telemarketers from calling numbers registered on the platform for less than 180 days.
Through October 2025, 5.9 million phone blocking requests were made to receive calls containing unwanted payday loan offers.
According to data from Consumidor.gov and Dataprev, claims for “uncontracted product” decreased by approximately 70% between 2021 and 2025, from 0.07% to 0.02% of total active contracts, even with the expansion of the consignment portfolio over the period.
Since 2008, when security measures began to be taken, several rules have already been implemented, such as the obligation to credit the money to the beneficiary’s account, the creation of self-regulation for the recipient, the adoption of facial biometrics, the digital sending of contracts through the Meu INSS application and the automatic blocking of benefits for new hires, with unlocking only with biometrics.
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