Business 2 August 2026

BPI made €239 million in six months, down 13%, and the reason sits in the footnotes

Banco BPI closed the first half of 2026 with €239 million in profit, a 13% drop. Lending grew 8% — the fall comes from one-off accounting effects.

BPI earned €239 million in the first six months of 2026. That is 13% less than last year, which sounds bad until you look at where the gap comes from — and it does not come from the business.

The shortfall is €35 million, and two one-off items explain almost all of it. In the first half of 2025 the bank booked an €18 million gain from reversing banking-sector solidarity contributions paid in earlier years. This time, an accounting reclassification of its stake in BCI knocked €35 million off. Put those two together and the drop stops being mysterious.

Is BPI’s underlying business shrinking?

No, it is growing. Total lending rose 8% to €35.1 billion, and customer funds also climbed 8% to €45.3 billion. The mortgage book reached €18 billion, which says plenty about where Portuguese household money is heading right now — and fits a market where each rental listing now draws 24 enquiries and buying still looks, to a lot of people, like the less bad option.

Return on equity landed at 14.8%, a figure Portuguese banking has not thrown around this casually in quite some years.

How much of the profit came from Portugal?

Of the €239 million, €221 million came from the Portuguese operation — down 8% year on year. The rest comes from international holdings, which is precisely where the BCI reclassification did its accounting damage.

The honest read: net interest margin under pressure in a market management itself calls highly competitive, with the core business still growing underneath. Sector-wide indicators are published by the Bank of Portugal, and that is where you will see whether this margin squeeze is a BPI problem or everyone’s.

If you bank there, the practical translation is simple enough: lenders with tighter margins tend to compete on rates. Worth shopping around.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: Shatabisha / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Business 2 August 2026

Markets tracker: gold, the Fed, oil and stocks

Our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal — gold, Fed and ECB decisions, oil and stocks. Updated whenever there is news.

This is our running tracker of the markets that move savings in Portugal. Instead of a fresh article for every swing, we update this page whenever something matters: gold, Federal Reserve and European Central Bank decisions, oil and the main stock indices. For the background on the Portuguese economy, see our mid-year review. Official data is at the Bank of Portugal.

Business 2 August 2026

Electric cars are now a quarter of Portugal's market and diesel is fading fast

More than 33,000 electric vehicles were sold in Portugal in the first half of 2026, up 33.4%. Fully electric cars took 25.3% of the market, and alternative-energy vehicles now account for 74.2% of registrations.

If you still talk about electric cars as an eccentric neighbour's hobby, you are working from three-year-old numbers. Portugal sold more than 33,000 electric vehicles in the first half of 2026, up 33.4% on the same period of 2025, and fully electric models closed the half-year on 25.3% of the market. In June alone they took 28.7% of all passenger car sales. The whole market grew too: 157,943 new vehicles over the six months, up 10.4%, and 30,317 in June…

Bar chart of Semapa's half-year profit: 570 million with Secil, 90 million in 2025 and 54 million without Secil

Business 1 August 2026

Semapa booked 570 million euros, and 516 million of that came from selling Secil

Semapa's first-half profit multiplied sixfold to 570.1 million euros. Strip out the gain on the Secil sale and 53.9 million is left — less than a year ago.

Some results need reading twice. This is one of them. 570.1 million euros of net profit attributable to shareholders, against 89.5 million in the same period last year. That is more than six times over, the kind of jump that normally sends a share price up and a press release into capital letters. Except 516.2 million of it is an accounting gain, still provisional, from the sale of Secil to Spain's Cementos Molins. The Queiroz Pereira family holding sold…

Chart of Portugal's half-year budget balance in 2025 and 2026

Business 31 July 2026

Portugal's budget slipped into deficit by June, and old health-service bills did it

Portugal's public accounts closed the first half of 2026 with a 213 million euro deficit, after a surplus of more than two billion in the same period last year.

Portugal's public accounts ended the first half of the year 212.6 million euros in the red. On its own that is a small number. As a swing it is not: the same six months last year closed with a surplus above two billion, so the balance moved by 2,230 million euros in twelve months. Two bills the state chose to settle in one go. The big one was clearing old Serviço Nacional de Saúde debts to suppliers — invoices hospitals had been carrying for years,…

Business 31 July 2026

Caixa Geral de Depositos is selling its Brazilian bank and turning back towards home

The Council of Ministers picked MD Capital as buyer of all of Banco Caixa Geral - Brasil, leaving Portugal's state bank focused on home loans and SME lending at home.

Caixa Geral de Depositos is closing another chapter of its life abroad. On Thursday the Council of Ministers approved a resolution naming MD Capital as the winning bidder for the entire share capital of Banco Caixa Geral - Brasil. MD Capital Ltda, selected as part of the process of divesting the stake Caixa held in its Brazilian operation. The government communique puts no price on it, and until there is a signed contract and a nod from the Brazilian…

Bar chart of Portugal's July 2026 year-on-year inflation: energy 8.7%, fresh food 3.7%, headline 3.0% and core 2.6%

Business 31 July 2026

Portugal's inflation slowed to 3% in July, but energy is still running at 8.7%

INE's flash estimate puts July inflation at 3.0% year on year, two tenths below June. Energy remains the drag, and core inflation actually ticked up.

Inflation in Portugal slowed to 3.0% in July. That is INE's flash estimate, out this Friday, and it is two tenths below June's 3.2%. Before anyone celebrates, it pays to look under the headline. The consumer price index rose 3.0% year on year, measured against July of last year. Against the previous month, prices actually fell 0.5%, largely down to the sales and the usual July seasonality. The twelve-month average sits at 2.6%. The less cheerful part is…

Business 31 July 2026

BMW is cutting up to 8,000 jobs, and Germany has stopped being surprised

BMW's voluntary redundancy programme starts in October and runs to the end of 2027. Factories are spared, the cuts land in admin, and the target saving is €1bn a year from 2028.

BMW has confirmed a voluntary severance programme that could see up to 8,000 people leave the company, agreed with worker representatives. It opens in October and runs to the end of 2027. There are no compulsory redundancies and the factories are largely untouched: the cuts sit in administration and development. Because the maths of the next decade does not work. The carmaker expects to save around one billion euros a year from 2028, and it needs that…

Business 30 July 2026

EDP made 732 million euros in six months, with renewables and grids doing the pulling

EDP closed the first half of 2026 with 732 million euros in profit, up 3% on last year, as recurring EBITDA rose 5% to 2.73 billion.

732 million euros, up 3% on the same period last year. Recurring EBITDA, the figure analysts reach for first because it strips out one-off noise, rose 5% to 2.73 billion euros. It is not a spectacular half-year, but it is one pointing the right way, which in a year of cheap electricity counts for plenty. Because the company increasingly makes its money producing and moving electricity rather than selling it. Prices fell in Portugal, in Spain and across…

Business 30 July 2026

Portugal's economy looks to have grown again in the second quarter after a flat start to the year

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Portugal's economy is estimated to have grown 0.4% in the second quarter compared with the previous three months, roughly 2% year-on-year. That is the reading from the joint CIP and ISEG barometer published this week, and it lands ahead of the official number from the national statistics office — but it sets the tone. Zero point four percent quarter-on-quarter, which sounds modest until you remember where it starts from. The first quarter came in flat —…

Business 29 July 2026

TAP's final bids land today, and only Air France-KLM and Lufthansa are still in the race

The deadline for binding bids for 49.9% of TAP falls on 29 July. Two bidders remain, Parpública spends August on the analysis, and the government decides in early September.

Today is the day TAP's privatisation stops being talk and turns into signed paper. Wednesday is the deadline for binding bids for the 49.9% stake the Portuguese state has decided to sell, and only two names are left on the table: Air France-KLM and Lufthansa. Binding means what it sounds like. These are no longer intentions or scenarios — they are a price and a commitment the bidder is stuck with. Not today. Once the bids are in, Parpública has August to…

Business 28 July 2026

Portugal's economy slows this year and 2027 barely lifts it, warns the Competitiveness Forum

The Forum for Competitiveness sees Portuguese GDP growing 1.7% to 1.9% in 2026 and 1.8% to 2% in 2027, blaming structural weakness rather than the cycle.

Portugal's economy will grow less this year than it did last year, and next year brings no comeback either. That is the picture from the Forum for Competitiveness, and the uncomfortable part is not this year's number. It is next year's. Between 1.7% and 1.9%, after 1.9% in 2025. A modest tap on the brakes. The trouble is 2027: the forecast lands at 1.8% to 2%, which is to say almost exactly the same. This is not one weak year followed by a rebound. It is…

Business 28 July 2026

Galp made 812 million euros by June and is raising the dividend on top

Galp's first-half 2026 profit rose 44% to 812 million euros on higher Brazilian output and a Brent price 28% dearer. The dividend climbs to 70 cents a share.

Some half-years a company works hard and earns little. For Galp, this was not one of them. 812 million euros, up 44% on the same period last year. The explanation stands on two legs. The first is Brazilian production, which grew 17%. The second is price: Brent gained 28% over a half-year in which the Middle East conflict never let the market settle, the same move that pushed the barrel above 100 dollars and made petrol dearer at the pump.

Business 26 July 2026

Euro banknotes are getting their first redesign since 2002, and the ECB wants your vote

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The notes in your wallet are being replaced, and for the first time since 2002 the artwork actually changes. On 23 July, Christine Lagarde presented the 12 shortlisted designs for the next generation of euro banknotes — two for each denomination from 5 to 200 — and opened a public survey where anyone can say which side they are on. It runs until 21 September. One is European Culture, swapping the current notes' generic bridges and windows for faces that…

Bar chart showing billion-dollar rounds taking 60% of global venture funding in 2026

Business 25 July 2026

Six in every ten venture dollars went into giant rounds this year

Around 60% of global startup funding in 2026 went to rounds of $1 billion or more, roughly $320 billion in total. It explains a lot about the mood among founders.

Roughly 60% of all startup funding worldwide this year went into rounds of $1 billion or more. Those giant deals soaked up close to $320 billion. That single statistic explains a contradiction currently annoying half the industry. Because the totals lie. Venture investment can look historically strong on a chart while plenty of seed and Series A founders describe a brutal fundraising environment. Both things are true simultaneously. It takes only a…