A real collapse, with proven facts

In November 2025, the Central Bank of Brazil decreed the extrajudicial liquidation of Banco Master S/A, marking the largest intervention of the National Financial System (SFN) to date. The decision came after complaints of the issuance of bonds without ballast, the use of false documents and fraud estimated by the Federal Police at up to R$12,2 billion.

The bank owned about R$86 billion in assets, and PF's operation, named “Compliance Zero”, resulted in arrests, asset blocking and actions against its controllers. The seriousness of the case caused the immediate action of the Credit Guarantee Fund (FGC), to guarantee up to R$ 250 thousand per CPF in compensation to investors and current customers.

These data are not interpretations: they are formal statements of the BC, the MPF and the PF. The operation was not preventive: it was reactive. And here begins the technical learner for any company that operates with regulated systems, access, and critical processes.

The technical alert for those who operate with GRC

The Master case imposes three clear technical obligations for audit, internal controls, compliance and technology professionals:

1. Strengthen traceability of critical operations

No securities are issued without someone creating, validating and registering them. In companies with multiple systems, the traceability of who accesses, approves or moves assets needs to be auditable, and integrated. Isolated logs are not enough.

2. Treat accesses as risk assets

Any permission granted to a user is, in practice, an exposure. The Master case shows that, without periodic review and automated mechanisms for detecting anomalous access, improper permissions can be a gateway to fraud.

3. Integrate real-time control areas

BC intervened after the collapse. Internally, what went wrong? The lack of synergy between those who regulate (compliance), who monitors (IT) and those who audit (internal audit). If these data do not flow together, the organization operates blindly.

Governance is not theory: it is business continuity

The facts of Banco Master confirm: there is no “minimum size” to be inspected. Supervision is on alert, and the failure of controls, in addition to causing damage, directly reaches administrators with legal, reputational and financial consequences.

Audited companies with multiple systems and critical cycles should now review:

• approval flows;
• decision heights;
• access control systems;
• integration between areas that should protect each other.

What Vennx can offer

At Vennx, we build auditable and intelligent controls, with:

• automated role mining,
• AI for detection of access anomalies;
• dashboards with full traceability;
• orchestration between audit, IT and compliance.

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More than preventing fraud, we create a trusted infrastructure.

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