It took another six years to find the formula we have today. In 2020, minister Pedro Siza Vieira ordered the merger of IFD with PME Investimentos and Sociedade de Investimento (SPGM), to give rise to the current Banco Português de Fomento.
During these weeks, the BPF had its great test, not of fire, but of water. With the center of Portugal swamped, muddy, without a roof, without electricity and with its companies stopped and on the verge of extinction, all eyes turned to the institution now led by Gonçalo Regalado. First to create a way to collect the thousands of requests for support from companies, then to coordinate the funds allocated for reconstruction, especially European funds aimed at mitigating this type of phenomenon.
BPF leadership realized that when heavy rain is soaking SMEs’ accounts, speed of intervention takes precedence over other considerations.
“In nine working days we did what took nine weeks during Covid and put ourselves at the service of companies. Of the 1100 million euros of applications, 748 million have already been contracted or are being contracted. In other words, today 68% of all requests are in the hands of businesspeople. 30 million are being validated, which must have been what entered yesterday afternoon”, said this Tuesday the president of Banco de Fomento in front of several hundred businesspeople gathered in Lisbon. There wasn’t much trickery, he still said. All you had to do was trust the person who asked for help.
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