Indeed, the web site of the central bank of Brazil explicitly acknowledges the role of inflation in driving financial innovations that enabled firms and households to economize on cash balances in that country. It states, "Prior to the mid-1990s, [when inflation was stabilized] changes in the payment system in Brazil were motivated by the need to cope with high inflation rates.
Figure 1 shows the national patterns of serious mortgage delinquency in 2004, which, again, I am taking as representative of a relatively normal period, with orange and red indicating the highest rates of delinquency and greens indicating the lowest.