Portugal: Central bank to disclose public report on large debtors

The Bank of Portugal (BdP) is to publicly disclose aggregated information about large bank debtors by 17 July, announced the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee.

On 23 May, the central bank sent parliament an extraordinary report on the problematic loans and other assets that caused banking problems and led to public aid (e.g. public debt) over the last 12 years, on the last day of the deadline, according to the law on February.

In question are the large debtors of the banks Caixa Geral de Depósitos, BES/Novo Banco, Banif, BPN, BCP and BPI.

This information is confidential for now, even if members may decide to disclose it, in whole or partially, depending on whether they consider it covered by banking secrecy or not.

However, a report with the same type of information, though aggregated and without mentioning customer names, i.e. without information covered by the banking secrecy it should also have been made available on the Bank of Portugal’s website.

Bank of Portugal did not do so at the time, having been in contact with the parliament, notably with the members of the Budget and Finance Committee, to reach an understanding of the information that will be public and when.

There was even a closed-door meeting in the committee with the vice-governor of Bank of Portugal to agree on the terms of what will be disclosed.

According to what the chairperson of the committee, Teresa Leal Coelho, told Lusa, it was agreed that the report would have to be published by the 16th, or at the latest, the 17th ofr July, in the morning.

When contacted by Lusa on this , the official Bank of Portugal source did not comment.

One of the requirements of the members of Bank of Portugal was that, in this document, the code assigned to each debtor is the same regardless of whether the debt is in different banks, as the members said that if the number assigned to each debtor was not the same could be misleading.

Thus, even without naming debtors, it will be possible to see the debts that the same debtor has to several financial institutions.

PMs want the original credit and guarantee value to be perceptible, the reimbursed capital, the losses already verified, and the estimates and the actions and measures taken by the bank to recover the investment.

The bill published in February gave the central bank “100 calendar days” to make a report “with relevant information concerning credit institutions covered in which, in the 12 years preceding the publication of this law, any of the public funds was applied or provided.”

The bill was voted in January and generically the Socialist Party abstained, while the Social Democratic Party, Portuguese Communist Party, Left Bloc and CDS – People’s Party voted in favour.