PCP Requests Urgent Hearing to Terminate Series E Savings Certificates

This Saturday, PCP demanded an urgent hearing from the Secretary of the Treasury to end the sale of Series E savings certificates and create a new Series F with a lower base interest rate.

In a request that Lusa had access to, the PCP parliamentary group highlights the abrupt manner in which the suspension of Series E savings certificates (CAs) was announced on Friday night to justify an urgent clerk hearing. State Joao Nuno Mendez in the Budget and Finance Commission.

Noting that the announcement of the suspension came “following statements from bank officials, namely Banco CTT ‘Chairman’ Dr. João Moreira Rato, urging the government to suspend issuance of savings certificates,” PCP deputies believe that the end of Series E is “a favor, provided by the government to the banks.

The Series E interest rate is determined on a monthly basis (from the penultimate day of the month to take effect the following) using a formula that includes a persistence premium and an average of three months’ Euribor. observed during the previous 10 business days, with the law determined by the formula, the base rate cannot be higher than 3.5%.

In the new CA series, which will be commercialized on Monday, the base rate cannot exceed 2.5%, while there is also an increase through a constancy surcharge.

“Stop issuing savings certificates with rewards more aligned with reference interest rates (and above current banking supply) is a favor the government is doing to banks by legitimizing maintaining unsustainable interest rates on time deposits instead of increasing instruments. this would help stop this abuse,” PCP said in the request.

Communist MPs also note that “Portuguese banking, which continues to be one of the lowest paying term deposits in the entire eurozone”, “revealed discomfort” with the existence of the E CA series, whose interest rate is “far above the bank offers”. “.

With the end of the E series and the creation of the F series, “the government, instead of encouraging banks to tailor their offer to the most adequate remuneration offered by the savings certificates, decided to adjust the maximum remuneration on the new savings certificates to account for abusive banking practices.”

At the end of April, investments in CA peaked at €30,324 million, which is comparable to €19,626 million at the end of last year. In May alone, private depositors invested 1,818 million euros in savings certificates.