PCP Demands Immediate Action to Prevent Deterioration in Bank Payments

This Thursday, the PCP called for immediate action to prevent a deterioration in bank payments for families following interest rate hikes, warning of an “unbearable reality” as bank profits soar.

The PCP said in a statement that the European Central Bank’s decision to raise its benchmark interest rate by 0.5 percentage points to 3% “is yet another sign of disrespect for the needs of the population and workers.”

This is the highest value in the last 14 years, and the ECB does not rule out a further increase during the year, the PCP stressed, criticizing the European Central Bank’s approach to inflation, “caused in large part by the choice of the European Union itself.”

“But just as serious,” he criticized, is the “commitment of the Bank of Portugal and the Government of Portugal” to this strategy, as they forgo general wage increases and price caps on basic goods and services.

The PCP demanded “measures that will immediately prevent an increase in family benefits, namely by reflecting the increase in base interest rates in bank profits” so that workers and people “do not pay for this option.”

At the same time, he argued for “the need for answers that break with the hegemony of the euro and with the country’s financial and monetary dependence on the decision-making centers of the European Union.”

“While it is true that raising interest rates hurts the public debt and the national business structure, its impact on the lives of the Portuguese people, when there are more than 1.4 million mortgages, becomes unbearable,” he warned.

Within a few months, the PCP stressed, hundreds of thousands of families saw an increase in their benefits, “in some cases by 80%, meaning they lost several hundred euros in their disposable income”, a reality that, according to this party, “is inseparable from the exceptional profits disclosed by banks, as happened today with Santander.”

For PCP, the “complete inefficiency” of the contract renegotiation mechanisms defined by the Government is demonstrated, confirming that “between the strong and the weak, that is, between the bank and the customer, it is the bank that determines the rules.”

Santander Totta’s consolidated profit doubled in 2022 to €606.7m, the bank said on Thursday.

Santander Totta is owned by the Spanish Santander Group, which presented last year’s €9.605 million profit this Thursday in Spain, a record high representing an increase of 18% compared to 2021, the bank said.