Portugal Case study 2 - Portuguese bank

• Autor(a) principal: Rego, Raquel
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Apolinário, Sónia
• Tipo de documento: Relatório
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/46803

The Portuguese bank group started out as a voluntary association in 1840 founded to promote savings as a mutualist organisation. The association aim was therefore to deepen the level of social protection as a complement to the public system. Currently, the group holds more than 630,000 members, spans eight organisations and performs in the bank, insurance, health and wellbeing sectors. One might say our case study, the Portuguese bank selected, belongs to the social economy and the entity operates under the status of ‘private institution of social solidarity’ (instituição privada de solidariedade social- IPSS) which, according to the Portuguese legal framework, means it acts under the ‘public interest’ with this status providing tax benefits as well as some prestige. This report refers to the Portuguese bank, which was founded in 1844. The main reason for selecting this case study stems from its collective agreement representing one of the few to mention ‘technology’. The bank sector is both highly qualified and highly technological as already detailed elsewhere (Rego, 2018) and confirmed with the Portuguese bank interviews. The sector counts on the largest trade union in the country, the SBSI, a member of the second largest union confederation, the UGT. Simultaneously, the sector is also very sensitive considering, on the one hand, its close relationship with the recent financial crisis/recession and, on the other hand, the internal board elections that recently became a topic of great media interest.