BES depositors returning to Portugal for their summer holidays have wasted no time in voicing their disgust and anger at the way they have been treated by their once trusted bank, by Novo Banco, by the Bank of Portugal and by the treasury as they tried to storm a Novo Banco branch in Sabugal today.
The depositors group already has scheduled a rally for August the 10th outside Novo Banco’s head office in Lisbon but, not content to wait, around 50 protestors today met in Sabugal to create some early pressure.
The one solution to the loss of their deposits, as suggested by an unconcerned Novo Banco management, strings out-of-pocket depositors out for six years with no guarantees.
Despite the general insistence on their money back, 2,700 depositors based overseas are said by Novo Banco to have gone for its offer, a suspect figure as yet unconfirmed and contrary to the advice issued by the BES emigrants association.
It is this emigrant group that has set up the demonstration in Lisbon on 10th of August and its managers stated today that its members had every legal right to be reimbursed by Novo Banco.
The Association of Pissed Off and Deceived Commercial Paper Customers (Associação dos Indignados e Enganados do Papel Comercial) today wrote an open letter to Novo Banco stressing the "importance of a solution" for those who "trusted and deposited their money in the former BES."
Interestingly this letter is addressed to the Chinese groups Fosun and Anbang and to the US Apollo fund all of which are in the running to buy Novo Banco.
The association stresses that "today, customers are still waiting for the return of their savings," saying its members believed a "just solution" to the problem.
Customers also warn that they will never tire of fighting for their money back and with the richest man in Portugal, Américo Amorim, announcing that he is taking BES to court for the return of an unconfirmed multi-million deposit, things are hotting up.
Amorim also unwittingly invested money from his personal wealth in commercial paper in Grupo Espírito Santo which exaporated in the Bank of Portugal's 'resolution' to BES's insolvency.
Novo Banco is shortly to hit the headlines again when a buyer is announced, maybe as early as next week, at a price unlikely to be close to the €4.9 billion needed to repay the taxpayer and high street banks which helped bail out the bankrupt BES last August.
