Banco Comercial Portugués (BCP) and Banco Sabadell of Spain are to discontinue their ActivoBank direct banking joint venture and incorporate the respective operations into their own organisations.
The seperation of activities will be carried out through the purchase by Banco Sabadell of a 46.62% share of ActivoBank currently in possession of BCP. This acquisition will be made after BCP sells the shareholding that ActivoBank had in the Portuguese version of the service, ActivoBank7.
In a statement, Banco Sabadell says the new shareholder structure "will open up a wide range of possibilities for development". The bank says the restructuring will eliminate the duplication of technological development costs and enable the bank to benefit directly from ActivoBank innovations in online product delivery.
The banks say the split has no impact on their existing strategic alliance and will not affect the operations of managerland.com, the mutual corporate banking portal which they launched earlier this year.