Portugal’s development bank appoints new board

Portugal’s development bank, Banco Português de Fomento (BFP), which is in charge of disbursing funds for projects funded by the EU-funded Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), has a new board of directors.

After appointing a new chairman and CEO, the Bank of Portugal has given the green light to the rest of the senior management team.

Its mission is to have a closer liaison with companies that have applied for funds for projects of national importance to modernise the Portuguese economy and other companies in key technology areas.

The Bank, which is co-supervised by the ministries of the Economy and Finance, as well as regulatory input from the Bank of Portugal, will be headed by CEO José Regalado while the new chairman will be Carlos Pinto.

José Regalado has an enviable curriculum, having been variously general director of bank BCP’s department for SMEs, Companies and Institutions while Carlos Pinto had been a director at Banco Momntepio, Santander, BNP Paribas and Commerzbank and had a role at the World Bank. Another 10 names have been appointed to the board.

The Portuguese government wants the development bank to be more dynamic and have a closer relationship with companies. The BFP was set up almost a decade ago in the wake of the Great Recession and Portugal’s financial and sovereign debt crisis but was the target of criticism from companies for not sufficiently meeting their needs.

“Since it was founded, the BPF did not have the impact on the Portuguese economy that we had all hoped”, the Adjunct Minister (to the Prime Minister’s Office) and Minister for Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida has said recently.

Also, Portugal’s Minister of the Economy, Pedro Reis, said that the government, led by Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, was “focused on relaunching the bank and that it should have the impact it is supposed to have”.

In parliament, the parliamentary commission that accompanies the execution of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and Portugal 2030 heard Castro Almeida who brushed off suggestions that the BPF was a “bank of last recourse”.

“It has a very important role in the system of guarantees and for financing long-term projects that are not financed by the traditional banking system,” he said.