Banco Mais is a credit institution specialized in the consumption credit market, with main focus in the car financing. Nowadays, it offers services in areas like personal, house and health credit as well as credit cards.
Specializing in the car financing market in Portugal, Banco Mais initiated in the 90’s a process of internationalization, expanding its activities to other countries. It is currently present in Portugal, Spain, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and Brazil.
In the 80’s, the search for car financing was growing and the market did not have alternatives to the traditional methods, so the company saw there an opportunity.
In September 1987, Tecnicar-Automóveis, SA began in Lisbon the activity of selling cars under financing plans, providing services not only to the Auto Industrial Group (a partner at the time), but also offering them to sellers of used cars in general, working very closely with each of them, especially in the used cars’ market, strategy that is used even today.
In the financial markets there were still huge administrative barriers and the market itself was quite closed, mainly in the southern European countries. The credit limits imposed to the financial institutions were used as an instrument of monetary policy, not only in Portugal but also in Spain.
In 1990, Tecnicar-Automóveis, due to legal issues, changed the name to Tecnicrédito Financiamento de Aquisições a Crédito, SA, a SFAC (Sociedade de Financiamento e Aquisições a Crédito). The company was then bought by the largest Portuguese private capital fund, BPA – Banco Português do Atlântico. This was the beginning of a large scale business expansion in the market of used car financing. In December 1996, following the acquisition of BPA by BCP, the shares of Tecnicrédito w ...