BPER Banca S.p.A.

Overview

BPER Banca S.p.A., headquartered in Modena, is the parent company of the BPER banking group and has roots dating back to 1867. It operates as a universal bank, providing retail, corporate, private and wealth management banking services as well as bancassurance, leasing, factoring, consumer credit and payment services. The group states that its mission is to support individuals, businesses, communities and local areas in their growth by promoting innovation and integrating ESG factors with social and environmental sustainability.[1]+2

BPER’s business is overwhelmingly domestic, with activities essentially concentrated in Italy and a branch network spanning 19 of the country’s 20 regions. The group describes itself as the third-largest commercial bank in Italy by number of customers and assets under management. As of 31 December 2024, it employed around 20,000 people, operated 1,558 branches across Italy, served approximately 5 million customers, and generated FY24 operating income of €5.57 billion.[4]+3 [1]+5

Products & services

BPER Banca’s retail product set includes Conto On Demand, an online current account offered in Light and Pro plans with app/web management, online SEPA transfers, ATM withdrawals within the BPER network and an included debit card, with dedicated terms for younger customers [7][8]. It also offers Conto TEEN for ages 13-17, which can be opened online or in branch and includes Smart digital services and a Teen debit card that can be managed by app or PC [9][10]. BPER also introduced a current-account card for new customers and continued promoting the GRANDE! savings account as a youth-oriented savings and financial education product [9]. Its card range was expanded with new consumer and business debit and credit cards made with recycled materials, designed with Braille markings for accessibility, and bundled with insurance and health services through partners including UnipolSai and SiSalute [11].

In lending, BPER offers fifth-of-salary and pension-backed loans and launched the QuiQ pension-backed loan, which can be disbursed in less than 24 hours if requirements are met; the bank also standardized the personal-loan sales process on a single application platform [12]. Its mortgage range includes the Fixed Rate Green Loan / Mutuo Green for high-efficiency homes or energy requalification, Mutuo Assicurato, and an under-36 first-home mortgage marketed with financing up to 100% of the property value and Consap-backed green options [13]+3. In protection products, BPER’s offer includes Acuore, Acuore Super and Argento for health and home, plus digital policies such as UniSalute Sorriso for dental cover and UniSalute 4Zampe for pet insurance [17].

For businesses, BPER markets a broad menu of guaranteed and themed financing products. These include Fin PMI, an unsecured SME loan backed by the Central Guarantee Fund; SACE Garanzia e Futuro for medium/long-term unsecured or mortgage loans to incorporated companies of any size; EIF-backed products FIN CULTURAL, NEW INNOVFIN and FIN SUSTAINABILITY; and FIN EIB Guarantee loans for mid-caps with 250 to 3,000 employees whose projects align with EU objectives [18]+3. The bank also offers NRRP-linked green financing, including agrivoltaic financing for photovoltaic installations with peak power from 6 kWp to 500 kWp on agricultural, livestock and agro-industrial buildings, and it serves corporate customers through leasing and factoring subsidiaries Sardaleasing and BPER Factor [22]+2.

Where product mix is disclosed through commission income, payment services were the largest fee area at €593.9 million, or 36.1% of total commission income, followed by placement of securities at €311.3 million, or 18.9%, and insurance products at €201.7 million, or 12.3% [25]. [9]+18

Geographic presence

BPER Banca’s operations are overwhelmingly concentrated in Italy. The group states that its activities are essentially concentrated in Italy, and its country-by-country turnover disclosure shows €5,471,992 thousand of turnover in Italy and €18,639 thousand in Luxembourg in 2024, implying that roughly 99.7% of turnover was generated in Italy and about 0.3% in Luxembourg. The only foreign-based group company specifically identified is BPER Bank Luxembourg S.A.[4]+3

Its physical footprint is centered on Italy. At year-end 2024, the group had 1,558 branches in Italy and one branch office in Luxembourg; within that total, BPER Banca had 1,285 branches, Banco di Sardegna 271, and Banca Cesare Ponti 2. BPER Banca itself was present in 19 of Italy’s 20 regions, with its largest regional branch footprints in Lombardy (264 branches), Emilia-Romagna (239), Liguria (108), Marche (82), Campania (79), Piedmont (73) and Lazio (72). Sardinia is covered through Banco di Sardegna, which had 265 branches on the island and 271 in total.[29]+3

The bank’s administrative headquarters, general management and registered office are in Milan, at Piazza Duomo 19. Its Italian distribution structure is organized into nine regional departments based in Milan, Brescia, Modena, Bologna, Genoa, Loreto, Rome, Avellino and Crotone. Employee presence is also almost entirely domestic: 19,495 of the group’s 19,532 employees were located in Italy at year-end 2024.[32]+13 [4]+21

Business segments

BPER Banca’s official management/IFRS 8 segmentation is built around a behavioural customer-clustering model that uses counterparty legal nature and risk profile, balance-sheet and income-statement measures such as turnover, granted facilities and total assets, and behavioural variables. On that basis, the group reports seven segments: Retail, Private, Corporate, Large Corporate, Finance, Corporate centre, and Other assets.[46]+3 Retail covers Family customers with assets below €50,000, Personal customers with assets between €50,000 and €500,000, POE customers with turnover below €1 million or limited facilities/assets, and Small Business customers with turnover of €1-5 million or mid-sized facilities/assets; it also includes Finitalia and Arca Holding because they serve retail customers.[50]+5 Private is private banking for individuals with assets of at least €500,000 and includes Banca Cesare Ponti.[56][57] Corporate covers legal entities with turnover of €5-500 million or facilities of €2-20 million or assets above €25 million, plus public-sector treasuries/entities, institutional counterparties, Sardaleasing and BPER Factor.[58]+4 Large Corporate comprises legal entities above those thresholds, with turnover over €500 million or group facilities above €20 million.[62][63] Finance contains treasury, investment-portfolio management, market access and specialist support activities, while Corporate centre contains governance, strategic and equity-investment activities not directly attributable to the commercial segments; Other assets includes non-banking group companies not allocated elsewhere.[64]+5

Using the 2024 segment table’s “net income from financial activities” as an approximate weight of segment contribution, Retail is the dominant segment at about 52% of total, followed by Corporate at about 17%, Finance at about 13%, Large Corporate at about 11%, Corporate centre at about 5%, Private at about 3%, and Other assets at less than 1%.[70] In absolute terms, the same table reports €2,673 million for Retail, €859 million for Corporate, €663 million for Finance, €548 million for Large Corporate, €271 million for Corporate centre, €127 million for Private, and €17 million for Other assets, against a total of €5,157 million.[70] [46]+25

Company history

BPER Banca traces its origins to 1867, when it was founded in Modena as Banca Popolare di Modena by the Società Operaia di Mutuo Soccorso. In 1983, the merger of Banca Popolare di Modena and Banca Cooperativa di Bologna created Banca Popolare dell’Emilia, and in 1992 the bank adopted the name Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna.[2][71]

A major corporate turning point came in 2016, when the bank completed its transformation into a società per azioni and took the name BPER Banca.[72] It then expanded through a series of integrations, including the absorption of Nuova Carife in 2017 and Unipol Banca in 2019.[73]+2

Its national scale increased further in 2021 with the integration of 587 former UBI Banca branches, and in 2022 it acquired control of Banca Carige and completed Carige’s integration by merger later that year, marking another important step in BPER’s consolidation as a larger Italian banking group.[76]+2 [2]+8

Sources

• BPER Banca S.p.A. — Presentation (2024 Y)[1][6]
• BPER Banca S.p.A. — Full financial report (2024 Y)
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• BPER Banca S.p.A. — Press release (2021 Y)[76]
• BPER Banca S.p.A. — Press release (2022 H 1)[77]
• BPER Banca S.p.A. — Press release (2022 Y)[78]