Central bank governor “has only €1,166 in his bank accounts” – Portugal Resident

The Governor of the Bank of Portugal has only €1,166 in his bank account/s. This is the opening sentence of a new exposé today, by tabloid Correio da Manhã, which broke the story of how the governor, Álvaro Santos Pereira, violated the banking code of conduct earlier this year – and has since been ‘put right’ by European overseers.

Now the paper is back perusing Mr Pereira’s ‘declaration of income and assets’ – the same declaration that flagged his misconduct. And it discovers that despite declaring three bank accounts, the central bank governor only has a total of €1,166 in them.

“As Governor of the Bank of Portugal, since October 2025, Santos Pereira has had a monthly salary of €19,915,” the paper explains.

CM doesn’t pose the obvious question. It simply goes on with ‘the facts’ as it has apparently confirmed them. “In the declaration of income and assets that he delivered (in January) to the Transparency Entity (EpT), the Governor of the Bank of Portugal declared that he had money in just three current accounts: €765 in one, €231 in another and €170 in a third. Santos Pereira did not declare savings invested in securities portfolios, financial investments, or fixed-term deposits.

“Santos Pereira began his role as Governor of the Bank of Portugal on October 5, 2025. And he delivered his declaration of income and assets to the EpT on January 15, 2026.

“In this document, he also declared a 3-bedroom townhouse in the Algarve, with an asset value of €433,000. The governor also declared shares in Nestlé, the Navigator Company, SA, GALP Energia SGPS, SA and Jerónimo Martins SGPS – but did not indicate the number of shares detained, nor the money invested. None of these companies are subject to the supervision of the Bank of Portugal. After being informed by the ECB (European Central Bank) ethics committee that he could not have these shares, Santos Pereira sold them last month. Questioned by CM on the amount invested by Santos Pereira in the purchase of these shares, the Bank of Portugal affirmed: “The share acquisitions undertaken by governor Álvaro Santos Pereira, in December 2025 and in January 2026, corresponded to an investment of around €25,000.”

In answer to the paper’s next question, the Bank responded that as a consequence of selling the shares, last month, there was a profit of around €3,000 – which the governor decided to donate to an institute of social responsibility.

The paper concludes: “Santos Pereira communicated the purchase of the shares to the ECB at the beginning of January this year, through the presentation of his declaration of income and assets. And he was informed by the ECB, on April 1, that acquiring shares in companies, even though they were not financial institutions, was not possible” (meaning, not allowed under banking rules), thus he had to sell them, by June 30 – which he did.

For anyone else confused by the declaration of three accounts with just €1,166 in them, on the basis of someone with €25,000 in recent investments, CM recalls that Santos Pereira took on his role as central bank governor after leaving his long-term job with the OECD at a point where he was earning an annual salary of €252,885. 

The paper adds that ‘holders of political office and senior public officials’ are bound to submit a declaration of income and assets within 60 days of taking up their functions. This means they have to declare their “annual earnings, properties, vehicles, fixed term deposits, financial applications and companies.”

Source: Correio da Manhã