Banco Popolare came into being on 1st June 2007 as Banca Popolare Italiana and  Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara S. C. R. L. merged and so became the third largest bank in Italy.  After the fusion Banco Popolare employs more than 21 000 employees and serves almost 3 million clients through its network of 2200 branches in Italy. These saving bank-like branches cover the whole area of the country from north till Sicily where they are considered to be the No. 1 financial institution. The strength of the company resides in the fact that they combine the friendly atmosphere of a small regional bank with the experience and background of big banks.

Essentially Banco Popolare wanted to achieve two goals by stepping on the international arena: first to help Italian investors with their foreign investments and on the other hand to make it possible for our clients to diversify their investments mainly in Europe but all over the world as well. We wanted to make our partners realize that besides our home network consisting of 2200 branches we already operate an international network as well. That is why we entered the Hungarian market too. By purchasing IC Bank  Banco Popolare disposed 6 branches, we opened 4 new branches in 2007, 6 more were in our plans in 2008, and we aimed to create a network of 20-25 branches within a couple of years.

At the moment we are thinking about opening brand new branches, but if there was a non-recurring chance on the Hungarian bank market to buy 10-15 branches with clients, then we would thoroughly consider the possibility. For the time being we do not have any sign of such a chance. Banco Popolare Hungary is an Italian bank but wants to operate as a Hungarian bank. We work mainly with Hungarian colleagues who are familiar with the conditions of the national market, and lot of them working in the Italian desk and corporate branch speak Italian well. Maintaining the Hungarian staff we follow the philosophy of the mother company according to which we want to become mainly a retail bank and this requires from the team the thorough knowledge of the situation and progress of the local small and medium-size enterprises.

Keeping the advantages of Central European presence in mind  the owner increased the registered capital  - now reaching € 30 million - twice after the Hungarian acquisition, and gave additional € 15 million subordinated loan capital to Banco Popolare Hungary.

The main principle of our strategy is to invest into the employee – we think in long term – so education is very important for us. As first step we wish to acquire Italian clients so we hired some Italian speaking colleagues, five of them are working in the Italian desk, and 3 of them in the corporate finance. Hereupon we launched the development of the retail, small and medium-size and corporate enterprise business branch focusing expressly on the Hungarian clientele.  I consider the achieved result as satisfactory.

According to our market research it is still worth opening towards real estate financing in the Hungarian market. Besides the residential lending and investment credits the renovation works of beautiful Budapest buildings may belong here as well. We consider the widening of treasury services also as interesting and attractive market segment, specially as long as HUF remains the official currency.

(extracts from Magyar Bankszövetség Hírlevél 2007/10)