Haitong must go to school, says the Bank of Portugal
After announcing their restructuring plan and the capital increase, Haitong will also have to go to school: since their managers are not from Europe, they must learn the European banking rules.
The Bank of Portugal wants some of Haiton Bank’s managers to have professional training in banking strategy and finances. The news was disclosed by the Portuguese newspaper Público, but the bank itself denies that such request was made. Nonetheless, that training will indeed happen, but for a different reason: Haitong will have managers from outside of Europe, so they must learn about European banking rules.
The training courses will concern specific topics such as financial risk, regulation, code of conduct, compliance with the rules and internal monitoring. In spite of denying the request was made, Haitong Bank’s spokesperson, António Cunha Vaz, explains to Público that “Haitong is preparing the the final list of the board members [to hand in to BdP]; therefore, taking into consideration that some managers come from markets with different regulations than those applied in Europe, Haitong decided it will give them training in order for them to better exercise their duties“. Additionally, one of the demands made by the Bank of Portugal was that Haitong could only have independent persons in their board.
Last month, the bank announce that because of losses of almost 100 million euros, Haitong Securities Company Limited will inject 339 million euros in the former BESI. Furthermore, securities will be converted in capital, which will allow for a 419 million reinforcement in the institution. The 2016 losses reached 96 million euros.
