SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilians bounced checks at the second-highest level ever for the month of November, as rising borrowing costs, high unemployment and a deep recession made it harder to meet financial obligations, credit research firm Serasa Experian said on Monday.
The rate of bounced checks in Latin America’s largest economy rose to 2.46 percent of cleared checks in November, the second highest rate for that month since Serasa began collecting the data in 1991.
The rate of bounced checks for the first 11 months of 2016 was 2.37 percent, the highest ever for the period.
Brazil’s economy shrank last year and is expected to do so again this year, which would be the first back-to-back annual contractions in the country since the 1930s. Brazilian interest rates are among the world’s highest.
Reporting by Tatiana Bautzer; Editing by Paul Simao
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