The presidents of BCP, BPI and Santander have different understandings regarding the amount they say they are willing to finance when someone goes to the bank to ask for a loan to buy a house.
Macroprudential measures do not allow them to grant 100% credit, as has happened in the past, with an exception being made by the Government of Luís Montenegro for young people between 18 and 35 years old to purchase their first home.
Now the hypothesis is being raised that this financing format could be extended to all customers, regardless of age, but the matter does not garner consensus among bankers.
An exception was recently made to the regime that limited financing to 85% of the property’s value, to support young people to buy a home at a time when interest rates were higher. A measure that included cautions and warnings, red lines from the previous governor of the Bank of Portugal, Mário Centeno, to the Minister of Finance Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, precisely due to the recommendations that restrict financing to 100%.
At the Jornal de Negócios forum, held this Tuesday, in Lisbon, and according to the newspaper itself, the president of BCP, Miguel Maya was the most enthusiastic in defending 100% financing for all customers.
According to Jornal de Negócios,Maya states: “the 100% [de financiamento no crédito à habitação] make sense”, for all customers, and even asks the Bank of Portugal to talk to banks: “the national regulator needs to reflect with us”, to find out if it makes sense to lift the ban on 100% housing financing for all individuals and not just young people.
The objective is to change the rules imposed by the supervisor now led by Álvaro Santos Pereira.
In the same sense, the president of BPI, João Pedro Oliveira e Costa, says that the bank can go further than financing 85% of the value of the property. “Banks should go further”, he states, but does not clearly advocate 100% financing, according to Negócios.
But, in contrast, the president of Santander in Portugal, Pedro Castro e Almeida, says it is not a good idea, as a rule, to finance 100% of the value of the property, especially because the temporary measure created to support young people to buy a house with a public guarantee, therefore financing the banks 100%, had a consequence: it caused the price of houses in Portugal to soar.