The main news about tech and innovation in Brazil. This week: patent delays, instant payments, real estate startups<\/p>\n
This week. WIPO claims Brazil still world\u2019s slowest in granting patents. PIX completes first year of operations revolutionizing Brazil\u2019s payment system. Startups also want in on Brazilian real estate boom.<\/p>\n
Brazil is a country with huge potential for innovation and technology, yet in many areas the country still faces serious problems. According to the World Intellectual Property Indicators Report (WIPI), published this week by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Brazil remains the slowest in the world in granting patents, despite having made progress in the last year.<\/p>\n
What happened<\/strong>. According to the report, in 2020 Brazil granted 86.4 percent more patents than in the previous year. The rate of increase was higher than in other emerging economies such as China (17.1 percent) and India (11.8 percent).<\/p>\n Why it happened. Roberto Ribeiro<\/strong>, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property, told The Brazilian Report that the situation is due to the economic crisis of recent years and a lack of investment in research and development.<\/p>\n Next week, the Central Bank\u2019s instant payment system, PIX, will celebrate its one-year anniversary, since operations commenced on November 16. The remarkable uptake over this period suggests it is revolutionizing the country\u2019s payment system.<\/p>\n A year in numbers<\/strong>. According to data from the monetary authority, PIX grew more than 600 percent in a year, from 13.7 million individual users to have made at least one transaction by November 2020, to 104,4 million in October of this year.<\/p>\n New functionalities<\/strong>. PIX has proven to be a hit in making direct transactions, but it remains relatively disfavored for retail operations, due in particular to the Brazilians\u2019 preference for paying in installments. For this reason, credit cards are still king when paying in stores.<\/p>\n With historically low interest rates and a newfound appreciation for the home as a place for leisure as well as work- a trend obviously boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic -, 2020 was a boom year for the Brazilian real estate market. Startups, observing a record number of inaugurations and sales, did not want to be left out.<\/p>\n Proptechs on the rise<\/strong>. Known as proptechs, startups in the real estate segment grew rapidly over the past year. By mid 2021, there were 527 companies in this segment in Brazil and they managed to raise USD 879 million between January and July alone in venture capital investment.<\/p>\n Home sweet home<\/strong>. As well as those giants, a good example of the segment is aMORA, a startup whose target market is still somewhat overlooked by other players: those looking to buy a property through financing, but who lack the usual 20 percent of the total value demanded by banks as a deposit.<\/p>\n Flexible housing<\/strong>. In a different vein, other startups are targetting a niche that sees housing as a service. Housi, for example, is a proptech allowing anyone to rent a house indefinitely.<\/p>\n\n
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PIX completes one year revolutionizing Brazilian payment system<\/h4>\n
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Startups also want in on Brazilian real estate boom<\/h4>\n
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Take note<\/h4>\n
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