The coordinating director of Montepio Geral’s international area, António de Almeida, told Portuguese newspaper Dário de Notícias that the decision was a strategic one, “made in November of last year” as a result of a law that obliges holders of offshore accounts in Madeira to reside outside of Portugal, of which Madeira is a part,

The new branch in Cape Verde “eliminates this problem, because deposits are only for those residing outside of Cape Verde,” said António de Almeida, who also announced that the costs of financing and capital requirements in Cape Verde are less restrictive.

Montepio’s Madeira branch mainly held deposits from Portuguese émigrés totaling more than 100 million euros a year. The holders of these accounts were invited to transfer the funds to other branches of the bank or to Montepio Geral Cabo Verde.

Almeida observed, however, that the Portuguese financial institution “will maintain its normal commercial activities in Madeira, where it has various agencies and even opened a new one recently.”

The Madeira International Business Center affirmed that it found the reasons cited by Montepio Geral to transfer its business to Cape Verde “strange.” In a communiqué, the Center said that it did not understand Montepio’s affirmation that “in Madeira the quality certification of its clients as non-residents in Portugal could result in illicit situations.”

The Center concluded that, based on this position, “it is legitimate to infer that Montepio prefers the control of Cape Verdean authorities” to the “adequate supervision of the State’s central authorities, namely the Bank of Portugal.”

In the same document, the Center claims not to understand “what Montepio’s decision to leave [Madeira] has to do with the cessation of the operations it had in the Cayman Islands.”

“In serious and rigorous terms, very different situations should not be confused,” highlights the Mandeira International Business Center, stressing that Madeira is entirely under the authority of Portuguese and European Community regulations, while the Cayman Islands are classified as a “tax haven.”

The Madeira International Business Center also criticized Portugal’s continued failure to provide Madeira’s financial marketplace with the instruments necessary for it to be truly competitive, not only in relation to others similar in nature located in more developed countries, but also newer financial marketplaces recently created in less developed countries such as Cape Verde.

source a semana