Horácio Roque

Horácio da Silva Roque (12 April 1944 – 19 May 2010) was a Portuguese financier and businessman, who founded the Banco Internacional do Funchal (BANIF) in 1988.

Horácio Roque was born in Oleiros, Oleiros, on the 12th of April, 1944. At the age of 14 he left on a ship to Angola, where his older sister already lived. Roque started his first business, a bar in Portuguese Angola, then a colonial possession of Portugal, when he was just 17 years old. He gradually built up his wealth from a series of business ventures throughout southern Africa. In addition to the Banco Internacional do Funchal (BANIF), which is headquartered in Funchal, Madeira, Roque's assets included real estate and insurance holdings throughout Portugal, North America and South America.