Banco Português de Negócios

Banco Português de Negócios (English: Portuguese Bank of Business), or simply BPN, is a Portuguese banking institution. It used to be a private bank, but was nationalized by the Portuguese Government in 2008 after a bad management and malpractice-related debt of 1.800 billion euros and several irregularities uncovered in the institution.

History

BPN - Banco Português De Negócios, S.A. was founded in 1993 and was based in Lisbon.

Scandal

Portugal's Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos told a press conference after a special cabinet meeting that the government was to assure deposits in BPN, and that the management of BPN was to be given to the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (Portugal's public bank) under Bank of Portugal's (Banco de Portugal, the Portuguese Central Bank) supervision from November 3, 2008, to prevent a financial crisis chain reaction in Portugal. Portuguese judicial authorities detained the former president of financially troubled BPN. José Oliveira e Costa, who was the CEO of BPN between 1997 and early 2008, was arrested on charges of suspected tax fraud, money laundering, forgery, abuse of credit and illegal gains.^[1] The role of Bank of Portugal in regulating and supervising the Portuguese banking system, when it was led by Vítor Constâncio from 2000 to 2010, was the subject of heated argument and generated controversy.

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