Tomás Correia steps down from Montepio after 16 years

António Tomás Correia, the CEO of the mutual bank Montepio since 2004 stepped down as the president of the bank’s board of directors on Sunday.

Replaced by Virgílio Lima, Correia had announced that he would step aside at a general board meeting on 24 October this year.
His last public appearance in an official capacity at the bank took place on Saturday at the bank’s Christmas party at a venue in Lisbon’s Parque das Nações.
Tomás Correia had a long and sometimes controversial career. From 1996-2004 he was a director at the State bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos where he worked in international banking.
He joined Montepio in 2004 after an invitation from the bank’s then president José da Silva Lopes and took ht helm four years later when Silva Lopes retired.
Since then he remained at the front of the bank and oversaw the statutory separation between the bank association (Associação Mutualista) and the bank itself Caixa Económica Montepio Geral, today known as Banco Montepio which bank’s business.
Montepio is a savings bank which focuses mainly on mortgages and customer loans rather than big ticket commercial loans for business projects. It loosely equates to building societies in the UK.
Correia assumed the posts of President of the bank and its Caixa Económica until 2015 when José Félix Morgado took over the presidency of that latter branch of Montepio Geral while Tómas Correia remained in charge of the Mutual branch of the bank.
Tomás Correia was fined €1.25 million by the Bank of Portugal (BdP) along with Montepio bank itself and other board directors of the Caixa Económica, a decision which was repealed later by the competition authority Tribunal da Concorrência, Regulação e Supervisão after Montepio appealed.