The head of Altice in Portugal, the company that owns the maligned MEO telecoms brand says that he is negotiating a trading partnership with two national banks so that MEO can expand into the financial services market.
Chief Executive, Alexandre Fonseca, is "actively discussing" the extension of MEO's activities into digital financial services.
In an interview with Reuters, the CEO did not say which banks he was talking to, only that they were large, well-known institutions and that a deal should be ready next year when services can be launched to the public.
Fonseca revealed that these talks are, "not traditional retail banking, but with digital channels for new generation services in the financial area, which in Portugal are still poorly evolved and can be developed with synergies with an entity such as a telecommunications operator."
These partnerships with the financial sector," continued Fonseca, "will have to be made with financial institutions that have credibility, with established presence, preferably national institutions, which are the ones that know the market better," he admitted, well aware of MEO’s appalling rating in the opinion polls while front runner in the Complaints Book Challenge.
In July 2017, Le Parisien reported that the Altice Group wanted to create a digital bank in Europe. This plan, according to Fonseca, is “on hold'' but it does not prevent the provision of financial services, because "it is not necessary to have a bank to do so."
Whatever deal MEO manages to do, its management will have to think carefully about the Portuguese market where the current brand name, for many customers, evokes feelings of frustration, delay, incompetence and depression.
