Portuguese bankers own up to mistakes
In the week that the Portuguese Association of Banks (APB) celebrates its 40th anniversary, and the former chairman of failed Banco Espírito Santo, Ricardo Salgado is being tried for fraud, criminal association, falsifying documents, and corruption, bankers at a conference on Tuesday to mark the anniversary said that the sector had cleaned up its act, admitted to past mistakes, and now wanted to finance investment in companies.
According to Negócios, Paulo Macedo, CEO of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) said he had “very positive” expectations for the coming years, underlining the economic context and highlighting that “we need more investment”.
“There must be more projects,” said the banker, recognising that bank financing will be necessary to “complement some requirement that arose from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR)” and that will continue in 2025. “There is a need for public investment, the bank is prepared to finance and wants to finance.”
BCP’s executive president, Miguel Maya, acknowledged that there is still an “excessive conservatism” when it comes to financing companies, due to past mistakes that still weigh on bankers’ memories. “With regard to BCP, we are very marked by issues from the past, but we cannot work with wounds, and we also cannot work in fear,” he said, remarking that “we have to be able to overcome these scars.”
The banker stated that “it is evident that mistakes have been made in these 40 years, but poking the wound achieves nothing”. “I have no doubt that the bank has learned,” he said, noting that he is not afraid of regulation, but not “over-regulation when it is inadequate,” which could lead to the banks losing their effectiveness.
João Pedro Oliveira e Costa, CEO of BPI, said “we have to move from tactics to action”, in an allusion to the political discussion around the feasibility of the State Budget for 2025. “We have a golden opportunity to take a leap forward”, with a favourable economic situation and a more solid bank, and “the conversations around the State Budget have been tragic”.
Mark Bourke, CEO of Novo Banco, also highlighted the good performance of the national economy and the efforts to transform banking. “We are in a good place,” he admitted, stressing that “we have a banking system that is on the path towards efficiency.”
Pedro Castro e Almeida, CEO of Santander Totta, was optimistic about the economic situation. “If we continue with this trend of having a sustainable country […] I am very positive,” he said, noting that “instead of putting more regulation in place, we need to dial it down and start simplifying.”
The president of the APB, Vítor Bento, said that another BES case would not today be likely, because financial institutions today have “a good level of capital, clean balance sheets, and a governance structure that was nothing like the structures 10 or 12 years ago. There is no comparison, fortunately for all of us.”
