While Portugal's MPs try and uncover the documents and files needed to see exactly what did go on at the State-owned bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the new management is pushing ahead with cost savings by closing branches and shedding staff.
A voluntary terminations programme has been added to the existing early retirement package to speed up the reduction in staff numbers which is going well, albeit at significant cost.
At the end of 2016, the bank had 8,133 workers in Portugal, down 297 from the year before but with first quarter losses of €38.6 million, the management under former health minister, Paulo Macedo, needs to speed things up.
On Wednesday afternoon, Caixa Geral’s management met union and workers' commission representatives to announce that the bank will move forward with a termination programme and needs to lose a minimum of 500 staff this year, along with 60 branches.
As part of CGD's planned recapitalisation, the bank’s management has agreed with Brussels on a restructuring program which includes the removal of around 2,000 staff members by 2020 at a rate of 500 to 600 per year.
In fact much of Caixa’s first quarter loss can be blamed on the staff reduction measures which so far have cost a staggering €58 million.
As for the controversial branch closure plan, management has presented a scheme for a mobile bank which can be driven around to places where smaller branches have been closed.
The bank is 100% owned by the taxpayer and now is being run on commercial lines. Before, it was run by a succession of deeply incompetent directorates, hence the need for €4 billion to €5 billion in new money to keep the institution afloat - this is the 'recapitalisation' and the public will most likely be paying for it.
Whether the country will ever hear what really went on in Caixa’s past remains to be seen but, so far, efforts by MPs to get hold of customer and loan records have been opposed by the Minister of Finance, the Bank of Portugal and the Stock Market Regulator which claim ‘commercial sensitivity’ while again treating the country’s taxpayers as nothing more than a source of free money.
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