Portuguese banks, in line with all European Union banks, will soon have to pay a new tax to finance an insolvency risk fund.
In addition, banks will have their financial health publicised by Brussels as from July in a move designed to allay worries in the markets that certain banks are at risk of imminent collapse.
The decision was taken following fresh market turbulence over sovereign debt in Portugal and Spain.
The European Union is to present its “stress tests” package at the next meeting of the G20 in Toronto between June 25 and 27.
The publication of these “tests” also follows fears that some of Spain’s banks were in trouble.
That led Spanish Prime Minister, Rodriguez Zapatero, to state that the Bank of Spain had carried out a thorough investigation of its banking sector, the results of which showed that some of its largest banks were among the most solvent in the European Union.
Santander, for example, which has a considerable presence both directly and indirectly in Portugal and the United Kingdom, was one of those banks with the best results.
According to the new measures the new minimum value of IRC tax that the banks will have to pay, independent of the taxation benefits that they enjoy, now stands at 75 per cent from 60 per cent.
And following the financial crisis the Bank of Portugal (BdP) has issued a recommendation that Portuguese banks increase their ‘Tier 1’ by at least eight per cent.
This means that they should have at least an eight per cent liquidity margin out of all deposits and capital lent out.
However, reinforcing the message that Portugal’s financial system was not as exposed as Spain’s, the Portuguese Prime Minister, José Sócrates, did not take advantage of the IMF’s advisor Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was in Europe last week.
Unlike the Spanish Prime Minister, Luís Zapatero, who held talks with Strauss-Kahn, Sócrates thought such a meeting was “unnecessary” even though the Portuguese Government had just been forced to postpone a three billion Euro sovereign debt issue.
The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said last week that the austerity measures adopted by both Portugal and Spain and presented at a summit in Brussels recently, were “very important”.
“We support all of these measures” she said and ruled out any rumours of bad feeling over the Southern Eurozone countries by stating “We’re all in the same, Eurozone family and have a joint responsibility.” Chris Graeme
