MILANO – The coup de grace was fired, by electronic vote, by 2,610 members of the People’s Bank of SondrioDecember 29, 2021. Called back from the holidays to approve the statute from Spa after 150 years, or from 1 January the institution was in danger of obtaining a banking license. Thus disappeared thelast banker next door of Italy, here embodied by cav. rag. dr. Mario Alberto Pedranzini, leader of the last “popular popular” to comply with the law and become joint stock company, after seven years of stamped papers and appeals, lost. “After 150 years of success, can a bank be forced by Europe and Italian politics to vote for the evil of its own and its own territory?”, Tweeted Corrado Sforza Fogliani, leader of the Banca di Piacenza and of Drowsy.
A year in red has never ended in Sondrio since 1871, and the shareholders have always had dividends: frugal, since the territory is a priority, do not maximize profits as in the Spa. Matteo Renzi, which with an “urgent” decree on January 24, 2015 imposed on 10 popular with assets of over 8 billion to transform themselves into spa, renouncing the special rights starting from the one-time vote, for which the employees-shareholders presided over the assembly and the appointments. “The Renzi reform has upset that world, which in truth had already started a process of euthanasia with some management that was completely out of logic or out of the market – says Ernesto Paolillo, head of People’s Bank of Milan from 1993 to 2004 -. A destruction which, while the great Italian industry was almost disappearing, deprived SMEs of their historical support. And it has impoverished the territories, especially in the smaller municipalities ».
What happened to the popular bankers involved in the crashes
by Andrea Greco
It was one of the great blows scrapper Tuscan government, in order to modernize a credit niche that has grown beyond its bell towers and limits, sometimes losing sight of prudence and compliance with rules and regulations. The scandals and the disruptions of too many popular (Vicenza, Veneto Banca, Creval, Bari, Popolare dell’Etruria) that for years had been climbing the rankings with easy credit blows and controlled mergers, had attracted the arrows of almost 500,000 “betrayed” savers and therefore of the government, against a lobby that after half a century of harmony with the parties of power was thought to be unsinkable . A sin of hubris perhaps, paid dearly.
Where did the banker next door go?
What remains of the great people’s army, which until 2015 prevailed in many rich regions of the North and oversaw more than a fifth of branches, deposits and national bank loans, is a breath. The banker next door, at least in the crumpled clothes in which he disguised himself as a “national banker”, is extinct. The remaining popular ones – about twenty out of 474 institutions, mostly with clusters of battered branches in the South – collapsed in 2020 to less than 3% of the total, after the objects of the reform were decimated by liquidations, stews, mergers.
They were the heralds of the “popular movement”, which came to control a quarter of the Italian market before the 2008 crisis: and which still held its positions in 2015. Since then, thanks to the reform and more accounting problems, 4,902 “popular” branches have disappeared. An 80% decline, which reduced them to 1,244 in the country: only 5.3% of the 23,480 branches in 2020.
Out of 10 groups covered by the reform, four has incorporated them Intesa Sanpaolo, leveraging its operational and system strength to pull off its rivals. Between 2017 and 2020, the leading bank in Italy (today it has 22% of the market) received 5 billion in state dowry to incorporate the two branches of the Veneto populations in crisis, then invested 4.1 billion to make its Where, which had integrated Etruria shortly before and was among the most attractive popular ones. The French of Crédit Agricole paid out 850 million (with 350 million tax allowance) for Creval.
Bari three years ago after many adventures was saved with a state billion (but the cure will be long: in 2021 it is still in the red, an almost unique case). Alone Banco Bpm e Bper, third and fourth in Italy in terms of assets, have been able to expand through mergers, and strengthen management while retaining traits that recall their past status. And today they are competing for the creation of the “third banking hub”, with assets of around 200 billion and behind Intesa e Unicredit, five times larger. Sondrio could also end up in the awaited third pole, which has distribution agreements with Bper and a common pivot shareholder: Unipol of the Emilian co-ops.
“The Renzi reform had the collateral effect of consolidating the sector, between the strengthening of Intesa Sanpaolo and the attempts of third pole of Banco Bpm and Bper – says Lando Sileoni, historic head of Fabi, the first trade union in the sector -. Moreover, the new strategic plan of Intesa, which allocates 5 billion to horrors the digital bank, will accelerate the need for consolidation among the former popular companies, which in order to remain competitive will have to align themselves with the leader ».
The credit to the system has not decreased
It is difficult to understand if the disappearance of the popular has influenced the credit dispensed in Italy. In these seven years the descent of the subzero rates in Europe, followed by massive government support measures to prevent the pandemic from holding back lending, have kept businesses and consumers safe from potential squeezes. The Italian banking sector, shaky in 2015 also due to the aforementioned scandals, today is undoubtedly stronger and more solid, having meanwhile disposed of three quarters of the 350 billion impaired loans piled up in the accounts at the time.
The overall data confirm: even if the 2020 annual report of the Bank of Italy certifies that the “popular credit” fell by 70% between 2016 and 2020, when it accounted for only 3% of the total. In 2021, in which Sondrio will also be a former popular, that 3% will be halved. However, several recent indicators show no decline: only the names of creditors have changed. And often the new names are the large banking spas, not the small mutual banks, which in turn are the protagonists of a reform to strengthen local cooperative credit safeguards. But the impact of the mutual banks on total funding remains fractional, similar to what remains of the popular patrol.
Less attention to business districts
All right then? Not exactly. From the famous “territories”, a word that was demonized at the time when compared to banks, there is evidence of the more political effects that the disappearance of the popular could produce in the medium term. The bell tower bank conversed with the businesses and he was an obvious interlocutor of local authorities, for possible collaborations on infrastructure, training, work in the most developed areas of Italy. A form, local and perhaps not always optimal, of “stakeholder capitalism”As understood by Alec Ross and Raghuram Rajan, for which companies, including banks, strengthen the surrounding communities.
Even that handful of “popular bankers“Risen to the news for having ruined tens of thousands of members e savers they had a special care for the areas of origin, from which they drew social prestige and the levers of power, which were then transmitted to the branch networks. This is proved by the fact that their reputation, among the various communities where banks in Veneto, Puglia or elsewhere, has not been entirely affected by bankruptcies. The dispersed people of the popular, including thousands of associates-employeeswho for decades exploited conventions and advantages, still remembers the generosity of loans, cultural sponsorships and other attentions.
Today the system is more inspired by the competition of the market: and the “new” credit follows more often rigid algorithms and less the sensitivities of the foremen. When other choices made higher up do not determine it. For example in Frankfurt, where the ECB it pays incentives to banks to use the money it prints; or in Rome, where the government has taken on the costs of any losses on 260 billion of bank loans since 2020.
International funds become shareholders
Then there are the “service” aspects, whereby some elderly customers can get lost in an increasingly digitalized offer of services. But they seem transitory problems, less pregnant with consequences than the definitive change of perspective that occurred when the “banker next door” is replaced by managers who play in the Champions League credit, where the strong shareholders are the large international funds, where it is necessary to mediate between local needs and global trends.
The story of Ubi, a former popular born from the banks of Bergamo and Brescia, is emblematic of community synergies that could vanish. The bank and its top management, in dialogue with the thriving economic fabric, in the last decade has been a co-star actress in the development of Orio al Serio, which has become the third airport in Italy for passengers almost defying the force of gravity. Ubi’s roles as lender, promoter, real estate developer for the University of Bergamo also contributed to making it a academic center national by 22 thousand students.
“Although several popular bankers have not been up to par, the fact remains that often living in a territory, observing its problems and needs, knowing and associating with those who manage administrations and businesses, generates relationships and knowledge that help make decisions fairer in the long term – says Andrea Moltrasio, a paint entrepreneur who was president of Ubi until 2019, and first vice president of Confindustria and co-founder of Bergamo Science -. I’m not sure if banks like Intesa, Unicredit or Agricole can or want to develop such sensitivities. This discrepancy, however little understood by supervision when it supported the reform, can create a prospective weakness in the Italian economy, which is based not on large companies but on inclusive communities, supply chains, districts ».
Climate and technological change, the challenges of today, require rapid and brutal reconversions of entire sectors. Like the mechanics, a niche-pillar that the Bergamasco supplies Germany. «When the heat engine will no longer be produced, which I think is soon, who will help to re-establish the many chains of components, foundry, precision mechanics? History teaches that subsidies from above are not enough, if there are no transformation agents in the area ».
Only in the future will it be understood how much of the child has ended up with the bathwater, due to the frenzy of a reform born of scandals and driven by political impetus, which to obtain a modernization has scrambled the origins and characteristics of the banking sector and many of its clients.