During a hearing before the Budget, Finance, and Public Administration Committee, the official explained that “the budgetary constraints applied throughout my tenure have resulted in significant financial cuts with severe implications for ASF’s activities, preventing ASF from hiring the services it needs.”
The situation, she emphasized, also affected the funds managed by the authority: “The same applies to the freezes imposed on the Workers’ Compensation Fund and the Automobile Guarantee Fund, which prevent ASF from being reimbursed for the costs incurred in their management, with undesirable consequences for its budget execution.”
Margarida Corrêa de Aguiar stressed that “these practices interfere with ASF’s autonomy and independence,” noting that the law protects the institution from external interference, but that this protection “has been overridden by political decisions contained in the State Budget laws and budget execution decrees.”
Still, the president presented a positive assessment of the mandate that is concluding, having begun in 2019. In July, Gabriel Bernardino was nominated to succeed her as the head of ASF.
Among the internal reforms, she highlighted “a profound internal reorganization of ASF aimed at strengthening the quality and effectiveness of its governance mechanisms,” as well as the creation of structures dedicated to risk management, human resources, and strategic planning.
In terms of team strengthening, the official noted that ASF faced a “severe shortage of human resources” at the start of the mandate but managed to reverse the trend with “the net recruitment of 36 employees accompanied by a significant improvement in their qualifications” by the end of 2024.
Another highlighted milestone was the digital transformation, with “the development of the first phase of AI use, the construction of new digital platforms, the building of a new Intranet, and the launch of new portals, such as the Operators Portal, the Health Insurance Portal, and the Health Insurance Observatory.”
In regulation, ASF prioritized structural standards on market conduct, governance, insurance distribution, and anti-money laundering, while reinforcing ‘soft law’ instruments, “a strategic choice with structural effects on the effective conduct of operators with clear benefits in consumer protection,” she pointed out.
In the field of supervision, the Integrated Supervision Model was implemented and sanction actions were strengthened, while consumer protection gained tools such as “the new complaint handling system, the publication of complaint ‘rankings’ by operator, and the creation of a structure dedicated to financial literacy.”
To conclude, Margarida Corrêa de Aguiar highlighted that “regulatory modernization, the promotion of a governance culture, and improved consumer protection in supervised sectors” are hallmarks of the work carried out, but she reiterated that the future of ASF will only be secured if the budgetary constraints on its autonomy are removed.
