He also said that the board hopes to reach agreements on the changes with trade unions if that proves necessary.

At a news conference to present the bank’s financial results for 2017 – at which it announced a net profit of €186.4 million, up from €23.9 million in 2016 - Amado said that the restructuring would be over “three or four years”. It is to be presented next summer by the new board that is to be elected by shareholders in May – with media reports pointing to Amado staying on.

The new plan, he explained, foresees more investment in new technologies and digitalisation to keep up with developments in the sector and to provide the kind of services that clients want, in a bid to boost revenues. At the same time, the bank is to make "significant adjustments" in its operations to achieve "strong levels of efficiency".

BCP’s ‘cost to income' ratio, he said, should be 40% or below to be competitive with its rivals. At the end of 2017, this ratio was 47.1% (excluding extraordinary items), down from 51.5% in 2016.

Questioned about whether cost cutting would mean job losses, Amado said he did not want to anticipate the plan’s contents. But he said the cuts that are already being made will have to continue, noting that the workforce was reduced by 140 last year.

At the end of 2017, BCP had 7,189 employees in Portugal, 144 fewer than a year earlier.