By Brazil Stock Guide – Brazil’s banking federation Febraban has named Leandro Vilain as the proposed successor to Isaac Sidney as chief executive, while taking the unusual step of stressing that the leadership change had been planned for more than a year.
Milton Maluhy, Itaú Unibanco’s CEO and chairman of Febraban’s board, will formally submit Vilain’s name to the board, the federation said on Monday. Vilain is expected to take over on Nov. 1.
The change comes at a sensitive moment for Sidney, whose past dealings involving Banco Master have come under renewed scrutiny following the lender’s collapse.
Febraban said Sidney had informed its board leadership in the first half of 2025 that he intended to leave after completing two terms as president. His second term was originally due to end in March 2026.
The federation repeatedly described the handover as “planned,” “harmonious” and “institutional,” saying the decision had been aligned more than a year ago. Sidney has held senior positions at Febraban for seven years and four months and has served as its president since March 2020.
The detailed chronology is notable because Sidney has recently faced questions over previous connections to Banco Master and its former controlling shareholder, Daniel Vorcaro.
Before joining Febraban, Sidney worked at Warde Advogados, a law firm that counted Banco Máxima — the institution later renamed Banco Master — among its clients. Between late October 2018 and April 2019, Sidney provided legal and regulatory advice related to Máxima’s recapitalization and the proposed change in control involving Vorcaro.
Sidney has said his role was technical and regulatory and was not decisive in the eventual approval of the transaction. He left private practice months before the Central Bank ultimately authorized the change in control.
Separately, documents disclosed this year showed that Sidney obtained a R$5.5 million ($1 million) real-estate loan from Banco Master in November 2020, when he was already president of Febraban.
Sidney has said the financing was a regular mortgage transaction and that the debt was fully repaid in 2021. He has said he was never notified by authorities of any irregularity involving the loan.
A familiar face takes over
Vilain’s appointment gives Febraban a successor who is already deeply familiar with the organization.
He spent nine years as a Febraban executive between 2015 and 2024, including five years working alongside Sidney as head of banking products and services. He later joined consulting firm Oliver Wyman before becoming CEO of ABBC, an association representing primarily mid-sized banks, a position he has held for about 16 months.
Vilain has also become a visible voice in the regulatory debate that followed Master’s collapse.
Under his leadership, ABBC has defended a strong and independent Central Bank and argued that recent bank failures do not represent a systemic threat to Brazil’s financial system.
Speaking about the wave of liquidations earlier this year, Vilain said the episodes demonstrated the importance of a strong regulator and called for measures to reinforce the Central Bank’s institutional framework.
His move from an association representing mid-sized lenders to the country’s most influential banking federation comes as the industry debates tighter supervision, the future of deposit insurance and the regulatory lessons from the Master case.
For Febraban, however, Monday’s message was as much about continuity as change. By explicitly dating Sidney’s decision to leave to the first half of 2025, the federation is drawing a clear distinction between the timing of the succession and the controversies that emerged later around his past dealings with Master.
Vilain now inherits the task of representing Brazil’s largest banks at a time when the fallout from Master is reshaping the debate over how the country supervises financial institutions — particularly the smaller banks that expanded rapidly by relying on high-yielding deposits and deposit-guarantee protection.
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