Millennium BCP: Leveraging knowledge overseas | CGD: a domestic retail focus | Euronext: internationalizing Portugal
PERHAPS THE GREATEST compliment that can be paid to a country’s banking system is that it is not the cause of much excitement. Not because it is dull, of course. But because it is so stable. Portugal’s banking system can be praised in that way: after decades of impressive expansion, the market has settled into a period of steady growth with a relatively small, but fiercely competitive, group of banks offering efficient services.
The market has had its upsets and some observers still harbour fears that mortgage and other consumer lending is growing at an unsustainable rate, especially given fairly stagnant savings growth rates. Overall, though, the Portuguese banking system appears to be a model of how banks in a medium-size European country should operate – with strong...
