Portuguese private bank Bison Bank reported profits of €8.8 million in 2025 (more than treble the profit in 2024 of €2.5 million), its CEO, António Henriques, announced at a recent press conference.
Bison Bank CEO António Henriques said that the bank had enjoyed its “best ever results” since it first published financial reports back in 2018 and saw its bank product increase 44% last year to €17.4 million.
António Henriques stressed that the impact of the war in the Gulf was “slight for now”, but he expected to see more interest from HNWI investors from the region as well as from the United States opening accounts with the bank which specialises in diversified portfolios that include cryptoassets, fungible tokens (it has recently launched two of its own) and AI-assisted client services tools.
The former Banif Banco de Investimento, which was acquired by China’s Bison Capital Financial Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, a private investment holding company based in Hong Kong, and which focuses on China-related financial opportunities, also enjoyed a growth in its financial margin by 20% as well as improved revenues from bank charges.
In 2025, Bison’s net financial margin grew from €7.6 million to €9.1 million by return on assets while bank charges almost doubled from €4.6 million in 2024 to €8.3 million in 2025.
“We grew a lot more in bank charges than in margin and we have almost achieved some parity between the two businesses and this increase in bank charges reflects the growth in the number of clients which increased from 4,314 to almost 7,000,” said Henriques.
However, the banker said that, at the end of March, there was a small reduction in the number of clients but added that looking at the year as a whole, the bank was perfectly in line with its budget.
Henriques also said that the bank’s total assets reached €656 million at the end of the year, while customer deposits increased by 67% to €588 million.
In total, assets under supervision more than doubled, exceeding €7.4 billion – a figure divided between the Depositary Bank unit, with approximately €4.1 billion and the Asset Management and Custody area, which achieved €3.3 billion.
He went on to say that for the first quarter of 2026, the impact of the war in the Middle East, which began on the last day of February, has been “marginal on the banking business.”
“At the end of March, we felt a slight reduction in the number of clients, but, year-to-date, we are perfectly aligned with our budget. We don’t have any risk variables that we need to address immediately,” he further explains.
First-ever dividend distribution
António Henriques also said that Bison Bank today has around 170 investment funds, “a very significant amount in the bank’s operation – we’re talking about assets under supervision which have grown by 156%”, double the assets in 2025.
All this meant that, this year, Bison Bank would be able to distribute around €750,000 in dividends to its shareholder.
The banker also reminded that the former Banif Banco de Investimento had accumulated a number of negative results over the years and its balance had been prejudicial because it had had a very high share capital and retained negative results which had been carried over.
The bank had, therefore, absorbed these accumulated losses and, as a consequence, with the application of the results decided at its general assembly, carried out a capital raise of €6.7 million so that on March 31, 2026, Bison Bank had a share capital of €50 million and legal reserves of around €4.6 million. The bank’s own capital stands at around €54 million.
In terms of client number, these increased by 2,600 for the year, going from 4,314 in 2024 to almost 7,000 clients in 2025 (6,943 to be exact) – an increase of 61%.
In terms of employee numbers, including board directors and those of Bison Digital Assets, the bank now has 109 staff, +44 on 2018.
Bison Bank also had a good year in terms of both national and international recognition, having been considered one of the best places to work in Portugal for the second year running, and was voted the Best Bank for Digital Assets in Portugal by Euromoney.
Bison Digital Assets
The bank’s crypto assets division, Bison Digital Assets, also enjoyed considerable growth from €80,000 in 2024 when it achieved a break even to €222,000 for the financial year with the number of clients increasing from 159 to 274.
The number of digital assets transacted in millions of euros saw a more modest growth from €130 million in 2024 to €165 million in 2025.
António Henriques was upbeat about the overall results at a time when Bison Bank is preparing to absorb Bison Digital Assets, which is a subsidiary.
The merger, he said, was expected to go ahead by the end of the current half year and will not mean any staff redundancies.
“We are not going to reduce the number of employees, but we will have a simpler, more transparent and efficient structure,” affirmed António Henriques, also guaranteeing that normal legal procedures “are neither accelerated nor slowed down.”
António Henriques explained that this had been possible because of the approval of the European cryptocurrency regulation MiCA in Portugal which means banks can conduct activities with digital currencies.
The merger will make Bison Bank the first Portuguese financial institution to operate directly with this type of asset, a step that the CEO considers “natural” after a period of adaptation, which allowed the bank’s stakeholders to become more familiar and prepared to integrate cryptocurrencies into its core structure.
As pleased as Punch
During the presentation of the annual results, the bank’s chairman who represents the sole shareholder, Bison Financial Capital Holdings, Fang Bian said: “We have continued to grow, especially in 2025.
“We posted a marvelous performance in terms of our result, our client base, our net profit as well as the number of our client base. It provides a solid foundation as well as confidence to our clients who come from all over the world.”
