Bank Aidexa bets on SMEs and approaches 1 billion in assets

It's easy to say SMEs! "Small and medium-sized enterprises have very different characteristics and needs when it comes to credit: we have chosen from the outset to focus on micro and small, seven million enterprises that act as a bastion of social cohesion, representing almost a third of Italian GDP and 50% of new jobs". Roberto Nicastro shows no uncertainty in the choice he made five years ago when he decided to create a bank designed precisely for that segment of companies.

Today, Banca Aidexa, of which he is president, reaps the rewards with continuous growth of a business with 130 employees serving over 20 thousand customers, assets close to EUR 1 billion and revenues of over EUR 40 million, which have risen three and a half times in two years. And it is preparing to celebrate breakeven, which should be within reach as early as 2025. "The decision to focus on the small has paid off, allowing us to reduce risks and enable a low-capital model," Nicastro continued at the inauguration of the bank's new headquarters, two floors on the edge of Milan's Isola district, with a view of the Vertical Forest and the Gae Aulenti skyscraper skyline.

"This is a change that is consistent with the bank's continuous growth: an open and fertile place for meeting customers and people," echoes the CEO, Marzio Pividori. "For Aidexa, this office is the only physical point, we have no branches: the onboarding procedures are all digital and simple, no more than half an hour, and the analysis of data at the service of credit is automated in almost 90% of the files, guaranteeing an average approval time of twenty days. Since the beginning of the year, the bank has disbursed almost EUR 340 million in loans, a 33% leap from 2024 with a cost of risk around 2% and a total Npl ratio around 8%. The bank maintains a pro-forma Cet1 ratio of 21.5%. Proprietary machine learning algorithms, trained to carefully and thoroughly analyse data from traditional and informal sources, with a depth of up to 10,000 transactions per customer, contribute greatly to the process.

There are approximately six thousand customers with accounts and credit, while the remaining 15 thousand have a simple current account that guarantees constant, highly fragmented funding with an average of around EUR 30 thousand per customer, remunerated at rates of up to 3.5% per annum: "There is no doubt that there is an unmet demand on the market for the remuneration of accounts and deposits," added Pividori. Looking ahead, Aidexa is aiming for growth thanks to an operating model that confirms its scalability by undercutting costs, a spasmodic attention to risk control also through the reduction of the average credit disbursement ticket, and an expansion of the product offer, always focused on credit, with the purchase of VAT credits and an evaluation of entry into factoring.