Territorialização financeira e desenvolvimento local: a possibilidade de um banco comunitário de desenvolvimento na comunidade de Lagoa Grande no distrito de Maria Quitéria – Feira de Santana (BA)

Abstract

The objective of this work was to analyze the possibilities of a community bank in the Lagoa Grande quilombola community, in the Maria Quitéria rural district, in Feira de Santana municipality, in Bahia state (Brazil). In the current stage of capitalism, financialization has been the main way of accessing financial products, however the ways of banking are accompanied by barriers to access and use of financial products for lower income populations and further away from bank branches. Thus, the hypothesis was that solidarity finance can be an instrument of financial territorialization that promotes local development, being an alternative of financial inclusion. For this analysis, an exploratory qualitative research was chosen, since there is no specific study on financial exclusion in Feira de Santana. Semi-structured interviews were used to analyze how finance is used in the studied territory and the spatialization of bank branches to understand how the location and distribution of branches in the municipality occurs and its possible effects on access conditions. It was possible to identify through the utilized categories and maps that the spatial concentration of the agencies is a hindering factor in the access to financial services. This is due to the distance and the need for other services such as transport to bank access, beyond to additional costs. It was also identified that there are formal and informal local financial practices that becoming alternatives, and that these local practices can be exploratory or solidary. It is concluded that a Community Bank in Lagoa Grande, in addition to serving as an alternative of traditional inclusion through financialization, constitutes an alternative to local exploratory practices and as a potentializer in the organization of existing solidary financial practices, as well as local development initiatives.