Cape Verdean bank, Banco Interatlântico plans to increase its capital from 600 million to 1 billion  Cape Verdean escudos (from 5.4 million to 9.06 million euros), the bank’s chairman said Thursday in Praia.

Speaking to Portuguese news agency Lusa, Fernando Marques Pereira noted that the capital call was exclusively for current shareholders, and Portuguese state bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) would maintain its 70 percent share in the Cape Verdean bank.

With the capital increase, Marques Pereira said, BI plans to boost its own funds and ability to intervene in the market, in the context of the new demands resulting from the introduction of International Accounting Standards.

According to Marques Pereira, despite BI’s operating results for 2009 still being accounted, in that year there was a 20 percent rise in customer credit “which augurs well for a good financial year.”

BI currently has eight branches on the archipelago, having opened its latest branch in 2009 in Assomada, in the interior of Santiago island.

The CGD group has a 70 percent stake in Banco Interatlântico, and the remaining 30 percent is in the hands of a group of Cape Verdean businesspeople and companies. (macauhub)