Portuguese jittery about private bank

According to unconfirmed rumours Portugal's biggest private bank BCP is on the verge of bankruptcy. Pedro Santos Guerreiro expresses his lack of understanding for all the panic mongering: "Listen up: the rumour is false. Go to your windows, look out at the street and the open doors of BCP. It's Monday and Nostradamus got his end-of-the-world prophecy wrong yet again. The bank is healthy and out of danger? Out of danger yes, but not healthy. ... The banks aren't lending each other money. This is not just a BCP problem and it's not just a Portuguese problem; it's a European problem. ... The European Central Bank is the rescuer. It lends banks money without which the economy would have come to a standstill months ago. System relevance ensures that no important bank goes bankrupt. Let the next wave of the financial crisis come if it must. There's only one way to fight the fear and the rumours: with information. And remember: it's not so long since we had the swine flu [panic]."

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