The republican transition introduced great changes to the Brazilian and especially São Paulo economy, through abolition of slavery, immigration promotion programs, coffee boom and monetary reforms. At this moment, the city of São Paulo became a great center of these changes. The banking institutions consisted of important agents in the financial market. We analyze the performance of the banks in the supply of the mortgages loan in the city of São Paulo of 1888 the 1901. Our research crosses bank balance sheets with mortgage registries to investigate the profile and behavior of institutional long term credit during a critical era in Sao Paulo's history. We argue that the mortgage market at this had dramatic expansion and diversified of what they had pointed the previous studies regarding the banking and economic development. Mortgage banks were the single most important source of mortgage lending in the paulistano market, but sharply curtailed their new loan writing toward the end of the 1890s. Commercial banks lent money in mortgages for longer time periods than was typical for this type of institutions. Even foreign commercial banks, which were warned away from transactions with long time horizons, entered this market.
banks; capital markets; mortgages; economic history of São Paulo
