Ceccato: ‘Barclays is focusing on Italia. The EU needs to reform securitisation’
The CEO of Barclays Europe says: “We see scope to develop the various business areas within corporate and investment banking”
“Barclays aims to grow further in the Italian market, where our group has been present for over 50 years. We see scope to develop the various business areas within corporate and investment banking, and in particular our advisory services, where we have played a leading role in various sectors.” Speaking in this interview with IlSole24Ore is Francesco Ceccato, CEO of Barclays Europe, which operates in 10 countries with 1,200 employees.
In the United States, there has been a succession of multi-billion IPOs in the technology sector, starting with SpaceX’s record-breaking IPO. In Europe, however, including the City of London, there is a lack of medium-to-large-scale IPOs. Is a single European stock exchange needed to try to compete with Nasdaq and the NYSE? Or is that not the issue?
This is not just a matter of stock markets; I believe it is more appropriate to talk about ecosystems. We must create ecosystems in which it is possible to support entrepreneurs who take risks, who have a technological background perhaps acquired at universities where the infrastructure allows for the testing of certain ideas. This is one of the prerequisites for a company to be supported by a stock market, which needs to be strengthened through a culture of investment that is still limited in Europe. If we do not do this, we will continue to see European citizens’ savings remaining deposited in banks or invested in property. This is not the sort of investment that helps a country’s economic development.
What sort of reforms does Europe need to improve access to financial markets?
We have a European-level regulator that does not yet exercise the same level of supervision over European financial markets as is the case in the United States. There is a legislative initiative, the Market Integration and Supervision Package (MISP), which aims to develop ESMA in this direction; however, this legislation will not come into force until around mid-2027. This would be a positive step, but we are only discussing it now. The other issue which, in my view, is highly significant concerns the securitisation of loans. When we consider the various initiatives aimed at channelling savings – which are currently held as deposits with banks – into investments, we tend to forget that these savings, which are deposits, are what finance the banks’ assets. So if we want to allow these savings to be invested directly in company shares, we must also consider how to free up that balance sheet item. Therefore, the reform of securitisation is, in my view, far more important than is currently realised.
