Offshore subsidiaries of Brazilian banks are seeing a surge in US dollar deposits by the nation's companies, which are keeping their export revenue out of the country, the newspaper Valor Economico has reported, according to a translated summary by Reuters.

Offshore subsidiaries of Banco do Brasil, the largest Brazilian state commercial lender, saw deposits by companies rise tenfold to $4 billion in the 12 months through June, mainly because managers were allowed by a new law to keep all export revenue outside the country indefinitely, the publication said.

The Brazilian government implemented the measure in March 2008 to fend off a flood of US dollars into the country that pushed the real BRBY, Brazil's currency, near a nine-year-high.

It has become more convenient for companies to keep their money outside Brazil as the real has strengthened against the dollar since April, when concern over the extent and size of the credit crisis eased.

Corporate accounts at the New York and Nassau branches of Itau Unibanco, Brazil's largest bank by assets, have risen tenfold since January 2008, with the value of deposits up 150 per cent, Itau director Mario Brugnetti was quoted as saying.