The Brazilian financial market is making tremendous headway this year with initial public offerings compared to last year, despite the pandemic.

During the same period last year, four of the top five IPOs were major global players, including Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Citi and HSBC, and only one was a Brazilian outfit, Banco do Brasil, according to a Yahoo Finance report.

In 2020, 13 companies have made their debut and more than 40 others have filed for offerings, making this year the biggest IPO boom in Brazil since 2007.

And among the five banks rankings in terms of deal volumes, four are domestic: Itau Unibanco Holding SA, Banco Bradesco SA, XP Inc and Banco BTG Pactual SA, and the other is Bank of America, according to data from research firm, Refinitiv.

Companies have raised $3.1 billion to date, which is up 113% from the same period a year ago. The 13 IPOs are outperforming global IPOs, which are up 20%, according to Refinitiv.

Still, industry experts caution that despite shifting trends, it's too soon to tell if there's a major change in the IPO market which was once dominated by global banks. What has been established is that there's been an increasing importance placed on reaching domestic investors and cultivating existing relationships that banks have with a new breed of midsize companies that are eager to go public.

In recent months, Brazilian investors have flooded into stocks as interest rates have slumped to all-time lows, making fixed-income investments less attractive. Foreign investors have accounted for 38% of the money in Brazilian IPOs this year, compared with 57% two years ago and below the historic average level of 60% since 2007.

"For a long time, the Brazilian stock exchange was all about commodities and banks," Alessandro Farkuh, head of investment banking at Bradesco, told the news outlet. "Now there are companies from different industries, from pure e-commerce to more regional retail businesses. Domestic banks know all these companies."