Teixeira Guimarães, vice president of the union looking after the interests of bank employees is not hopeful that Novo Banco, which sprung up to replace the defunct BES, will keep staffing levels as before.
With the bitter experiences of the BPN and BCP banking crises, the unions rep is in no doubt, "We know that workers are always the victims," says Guimarães in an interview with Expresso today.
The union leader is waiting “with calmness but also with concern," after he requested a meeting with Novo Banco’s wunderkind, Vítor Bento, and the three regional unions representing bank workers across the country.
At issue are the 7,000 jobs at in Banco Espírito Santo especially after Bentos’s comments this weekend when he hinted that there would be branch closures and associated lay-offs.
The problem banks face is that voluntary redundancy schemes are not having the desired affect as workers are hesitant to take the enhanced payments as they have no jobs to go to in a contracting sector.
The worries of bank staff were far from the minds of one lucky non-executive director of the old BES as the company’s 2012 annual accounts, for that they are worth, show that two loans were granted in the period.
BES lent €62 million to companies controlled by a non-executive director in respect of his or her ‘family businesses.’
The money was loaned to the companies in two tranches in 2012 when the bank was run by Ricardo Salgado.
The current team at BES has declined to go into detail over the loan or name the director or the companies involved due to ‘banking secrecy.’
The annual report states, "In 2012 the Audit Commission gave a preliminary opinion on the granting of two credits in the amount of €62 million, with an average value of €31 million and the value maximum of EUR 61.5 million."
The non-execs at the time were Manuel Fernando Moniz Galvão Espírito Santo Silva, Ricardo Abecassis Espírito Santo Silva and Pedro Mosqueira do Amaral, all members of the Espírito Santo family.
