Novo Banco unveils new brand image

Portugal’s Novo Banco unveiled its new image today which represents a new chapter in the bank’s life and is part of a marketing campaign aimed at distancing itself from the debts, scandals, controversies and public inquiries linked to the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo from which it had been created and which had dogged it for years.

According to the institution, 2021 is a milestone for the bank as it is the first year since it was set up in 2014 that it has registered a profit. It took seven difficult years to clean up the bank’s books, sell of Non-Performing Loans and improve the bank’s core capital ratios and balance sheets.
And an inside source told Essential Business recently that speculation that the bank led by António Ramalho was being prepared to be broken up and sold off to an overseas bank was “rubbish”. The source said “why would the bank invest in millions in a new headquarters at Tagus Park in Oeiras if it was going to be sold off”.
The bank begins a new phase for the institution with a new band at a time when it has put a major parliamentary inquiry into Novo Banco behind it. “It coincides with the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one”, said the bank’s CEO António Ramalho.
António Ramalho also dismissed speculation that the bank is polishing up its image to prepare for a selloff.
“The change of image is to contribute towards the growth and profitability of the bank in the future and its strategic role for national companies and the economy”.
The CEO admitted that it certainly had “pending issues” to sort out such as the Resolution Fund and does not rule out the possibility of asking for more capital injections from the fund. It will all depend on the way in which the differences and disputes over €500 million between the bank, the Resolution Fund and the Ministry of Finances end.
In addition to the new brand image, the bank has also come up with a fresh slogan ‘Together we’re building the future’ (Juntos fazes o Futuro) which reflects the ambition and cooperation of the various stakeholders, particularly clients and staff in this phase of the bank’s reconstruction.
The bank’s new colour scheme is now green and blue which “combines the green of our land with the blue of the seas,” explains the institution.
The letters in bank’s name NOVO BANCO will now be joined up and written in small letters ‘novobanco’ because “the bank’s relationship (in future) will be with its customers not official entities, statutes and regulations.
In other words the bank, as an independent entity, now seeks to distance itself from the official and government bodies that had been controlling it in one form or another, in the past.
The bank’s visual look is also accompanied by a new sound identity created by Portuguese composer Luís Clara Gomes for a “new technology savvy generation known for its innovation and creative work.”
The result is a melody that is “calm, light, breezy and intimate” according to the composer and is certainly a departure from the turbulent storms which the bank suffered over the past seven years.
In the first half of 2021 novobanco registered a profit of €137 million.