French banks are moving in on Portugal, no matter what the prophets of economic doom are saying.
On the day ratings agency Standard & Poor’s is expected to maintain its ‘junk’ rating on Portugal, Natixis – part of the BPCE group – and BNP Paribas have both confirmed plans that promise hundreds of new jobs in the next few years.
Natixis’ schedule extends to 2019, and includes another 150 jobs connected to IT management, reports negociosonline today.
Citing financial institute Bloomberg, it stresses that Natixis is being attracted by Portugal’s “competitive salaries”, vibrant property market, linguistic ‘competence’ and the fact that the “economic context” for foreign investment is “favourable”.
Natixis’ new operation will be based in Porto, while BNP Paribas has already announced that it will be hiring 1,500 new staff “over the next few years”, bringing numbers employed here to over 4,000.
natasha.don[email protected]
