The entire economic system is based upon trust. Trust that you can pay back a debt, you can take out a loan, you will get paid and the money will hold its value, the government will honor and stand behind it currency. This trust is lost when a government defaults on its debt, which was the case in Brazil and much of South America.
The real created an illusion of trust by listing prices in a phantom currency.
For example, look at Japan. Central Bank tried for over 25 years to increase inflation without success. It's actually not very easy to do.
The main factor behind reducing the inflation was not the URV hack, but the government's fulfilled commitment to markets to keep inflation low at all costs: through skyrocketing interest rates [around 25%], for instance (thus reducing credit -> reducing consumption -> reducing prices); or by binding it to the US Dollar and bankrupting many national industries.
The major and most important change on the Brazilian government to achieve this was the LRF - Lei da Responsabilidade Fiscal, "Fiscal Responsibility Law" in English (free translation).
With these law, federal, state and municipal governments, which added much more oversight and control to public spending, requiring budget increases to go through congress, forbidding "money printing" practices and also requiring detailed accounting records to be submitted to a branch of the judiciary (TCU) for approval.
I could go on and write a huge document here, there's a lot of historical questions involved too. If anyone is interested in more details please let me know.