Honestly, I would not bother attempting to change anything with respect to your bank. You are:
potentially causing issues with AIMA and your fund managers
allowing BCP to provide poor service and not complete any transfer of assets out in a timely manner
putting yourself in for a bunch of pain and paperwork
in other words, asking for a ton of trouble
all to save some fees, and because you’re annoyed. Yes you will eventually someday have to close the account and get your assets back. Yes this could be painful and take time. However, you won’t be risking having your GV paperwork get all bunged up in the meantime somehow and screw up a renewal or the like.
Accept that what happened isn’t great, take the hit, and don’t do any other form of banking there at all.
Good advice. Leaving BCP to go to another bank while you’re still on your GV will hand them another opportunity to cause you headaches, create annoying ramifications for your visa, and you might end up with another crappy bank … all to save at most a few thousand Euros. Your time is also money. Sometime doing nothing is still the best solution, however imperfect, especially in a country where every transaction faces a lot of bureaucratic friction. Suck up the loss and ditch them when you exit your fund.
I completely second what @jb4422 summarised above with my own interactions with other PT banks (now including Novobanco). In my opinion, MillenniumBCP is at least an average PT bank with regards to fees and services. I will only consider to close the account with them after i get my asset back.
Accept that banks in PT are not as competitive as in our home countries, take these costs as part of entire GV/citizenship project.
Very wise advice. My thinking would be similar. As I was told early in my career “Choose your battles” and “Penny wise, pound foolish”.
I do agree that the Premier service in Portugal is shocking. I actively avoid trying to contact my personal/private banker (if I can get hold of them) because they always want to sell me something that I don’t need or find reasons to ask me for more documents and information.
FWIW good banking service does exist in Portugal…I’m with BPI Private
I opened the account remotely, went for coffee with my Banker on arrival in Lisbon, he gave me his WhatsApp & helped out personally with any questions.
He has since moved on, his replacement invited me to their new offices & gave her WhatsApp too. I rarely need to contact her.
Annual KYC all done online. Use my UK mobile as my 2FA. Supports Applepay & MBway. USD & EUR accounts. Interest paid on USD deposits.
Monthly fee €9 and I don’t recall paying anything to get their initial letter for SEF for my ARI.
Recommend.
I also felt the 200 Euro pinch for a piece of paper that does not even say much other than confirm that the assets are still invested.
I think the only way around this is GV customers start shooting email asking what is the logic behind 200 Euros fee; and ask them to reduce it. There is no labour done by banks to justify 200 Euro fee for it.
The document will be repeatedly sought through the process atleast at every renewal.
As I have said before. There is quite a bit of labor a bank does to produce that piece of paper.
they exist
they have a building and employees
they hold your assets and manage the books.
they operate a bank and meet all of the regulatory requirements. This is Portugal. There is, as you know, much bureaucracy. How much bureaucracy do you imagine there is in holding a banking license?
They operate a brokerage. Again, how much bureaucracy is that likely to involve?
They need to make a profit for their investors.
For the most part, you all own shares of a private fund. This generates for them exactly 0 dollars of fees or kickbacks from the fund manager (versus say a public mutual fund).
Please note that on the whole you are dealing with the wealth management arm, not the retail bank. Exactly how many regular retail transactions are you generating for them to make regular money off of?
You rarely interact with the bank. Therefore every interaction you do have with them, they have to generate enough revenue off of you to make it even worth their while to interact with you.
So you aren’t being charged EUR200 for a piece of paper that takes 5 minutes to print. You are being charged for all of the overhead of having you as a customer. Which is far, far less than zero. This is Portugal. There aren’t a ton of customers with enough money to support a brokerage/depository business.
Frankly, I suspect most of these banks literally wish you’d go away. You’re barely worth their time. Indeed, please note how the number of banks servicing the GV community has shrunk just over the last couple of years. You AREN’T wanted. Which leaves those remaining with pricing power, since you need them.
No one said you had to like the situation, of course.
I really hate defending banks. But really, I get it. What pisses me off is that you are getting crap service for your money. That is unacceptable. I deal with other private banks and wealth managers. They pick up the phone first ring, their email never waits, I’ve had my banker pick me up at the train station and haul me around town because I needed a hand. So the way you are treated is what’s not acceptable.
Just revisiting this thread for anyone considering paying higher fees for a Millennium BCP Prestige account based on the selling point of having a ‘personal account manager’.
I just emailed my Prestige account manager for support with an issue and received a response that the manager has moved to another branch, that we no longer have a manager, and the account is being ‘monitored’ by the branch. We were given no prior notice of the change, and there was no indication they will appoint another manager.
They told me if I need any assistance to go to the branch in person, which obviously defeats the purpose of paying higher monthly fees for a Prestige account. Adds to an underwhelming experience of the product in general.
I probably won’t switch banks because I can’t be bothered with the paperwork required, and I don’t have a lot of activity in Portugal anyway. But if I were looking for a new bank, I would avoid the Millennium Prestige product and just get a basic account, or try out the suggestion of BPI Private given positive reviews above.
Does anyone know the email address for the Millennium BCP’s CEO, Sr Miguel Maya Dias Pinheiro?
I have a 3-month old unresolved issue with them and I am running out of options to obtain ‘support’. (Yes, I have been to the branch, spent 3 hours in a queue only to hear that they have no resolution and will ‘investigate’).
Does BPI have branches as such, or they are fully online like Activo? On their website I can only find they have two offices - in Lisboa and Porto.
Also they seem to be part of Caixa Geral group - any experience with that parent bank, good/bad?
Yes, they have branches across Portugal (in the major centres at least) as Banco BPI.
They are part of CaixaBank of Spain. I haven’t dealt with the parent but as CaixaBank they’re a systematically important bank within the EU so money is as ‘safe’ there as anywhere.
Still very happy with them and their app & service.
I suspect the CEO keeps his email well hidden, but I did notice yesterday that there is a complaints option via the BCP website. Not sure if they will respond but might provide some cathartic relief.
Is there some sort of Portuguese or European bank regulator you could file a complaint with? I know in the USA the CFPB is usually quite helpful for me when the bank is not fixing things it should.
