João Freitas is the Head of the Resolution Department at Banco de Portugal as well as Secretary-General of Fundo de Garantia de Depósitos (the Portuguese DGS) and of Fundo de Resolução (the Portuguese resolution fund).
He has been involved in the setup of the resolution framework both in Portugal and in the EU, having participated in the legislative process concerning the BRRD, the Regulation on the SRM and in the discussions on the intergovernmental agreement on the transfer and mutualisation of contributions to the SRF.
As a practitioner, he participated in the resolution of Banco Espírito Santo (the third largest banking group in Portugal at the time) and of BANIF. Those cases involved the use of the bridge bank tool (BES, 2014) and of the sale of business tool and asset separation tool (BANIF, 2015). He was also a member of the team which managed the sale process of the bridge bank (Novo Banco) created as part of the resolution of Banco Espírito Santo.
He was responsible for the setup of the Portuguese resolution fund in 2012 and has since then been in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Fund, including its deployment to finance resolution measures in an amount exceeding EUR 8 billion.
In its capacity as Secretary-General of the deposit guarantee fund he was in charge of operating the only payout of deposits in Portugal, in 2010 (around EUR 100 million).
João Freitas holds a degree in Economics from Universidade do Minho and a Master’s degree in Finance from Universidade Nova de Lisboa.