The story
BPN - Banco Português De Negócios, S.A. was founded in 1993 from the merger of Soserfin and Norcrédito and was based in Lisbon.
From Wikipedia’s article on Banco Português de Negócios, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Private company
Banco Português de Negócios
Logo: Banco Português de Negócios, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3
Banco Português de Negócios (Portuguese pronunciation: lit. 'Portuguese Bank of Business'), or simply BPN, was 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. In 2012, BPN, stripped of many of its debts and bad loans, was sold to Angola’s Banco BIC for €40 million.2 It was founded in 1993.1 It is headquartered in Lisbon.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
1993Founded1
- HeadquartersLisbon1
- Websitewww.bpn.pt
See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards
Banco Português de Negócios (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈbɐ̃ku puɾtuˈɣeʒ ðɨ nɨˈɣɔsjuʃ], lit. 'Portuguese Bank of Business'), or simply BPN, was 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. In 2012, BPN, stripped of many of its debts and bad loans, was sold to Angola’s Banco BIC for €40 million.2
Controversies and legal
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.
In spite of having "a market share of around 2 percent", the case of BPN was particularly serious because of its political implications - Portugal's then current President Aníbal Cavaco Silva and some of his political allies maintained personal and business relationships with the bank and Oliveira e Costa
In the grounds of avoiding a potentially serious financial crisis in the Portuguese economy, the Portuguese government decided to give them a bailout, eventually at a future loss to taxpayers. Because of that, the role of Banco de Portugal (BdP) (Portuguese Central Bank) in regulating and supervising the Portuguese banking system, when it was led by Vítor Constâncio from 2000 to 2010, has been the subject of heated argument, particularly whether Vítor Constâncio and the BdP had the means to do something or whether they revealed gross incompetence. In December 2010, Constâncio was appointed vice president of the European Central Bank, for an eight-year mandate, being responsible for banking supervision. Shortly after, in April 2011, the Portuguese Government would request international financial assistance as the State itself would be declared insolvent.
From Wikipedia’s article on Banco Português de Negócios, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Timeline
- 1993Founded Founded1
Links
- Websitewww.bpn.pt1
- WikipediaBanco Português de Negócios
- WikidataQ806196
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4