The Angolan central bank concluded after an asset quality assessment exercise (AQA), which focused on 13 banks operating in the country, representing 92.8 percent of total assets, that the national banking system is "globally robust", but pointed to recapitalisation needs of the Banco de Poupança e Crédito (BPC) and Banco Económico (BE).
The shareholders of BPC are the state, represented by the Ministry of Finance (75 per cent), the National Institute of Social Security (15 per cent) and the Angolan Armed Forces Social Security Fund (10 per cent).
In declarations to Lusa, on the fringes of the signing of an agreement to join the Credit Support Project, António André Lopes recognised "the capital insufficiencies" of the public bank, but pointed out that BNA's analysis dates back to 31 December 2018, having occurred after that date "some events that will certainly reduce the needs identified" in the AQA.
In addition to the activity that the bank carried out throughout the year, the capitalisation of 100 billion kwanzas by the state and the sanitation of the credit portfolio contributed to this reduction.
Recredit is the state company that is going to acquire the bad credit from BPC, which is around 950 billion kwanzas, said the bank manager, indicating that "all these events will contribute to the recapitalisation".
The bank's management is currently completing the restructuring and recapitalisation plan for the bank, which will be approved "soon" by the shareholders, he said, without revealing the figures needed for the "relaunch" of BPC.
António André Lopes also said to journalists that the bank has been carrying out a credit recovery campaign "with positive effects", but "not all (...) are available to regularize their commitments" so BPC will proceed with precautionary measures against some of the debtors.
BE, also targeted at the AQA recapitalisation needs, had already announced on Monday that it is preparing a capital increase, which should be carried out in the first half of 2020 to comply with BNA's recommendations.
