Bcc, parent companies push mergers away

Small is not always beautiful, but bigger is certainly better. A conclusion that often does not convince Bcc members, but which seems to direct the strategies of the parent companies, as the 48 aggregations implemented since 2019, the year of the launch of the Iccrea and Ccb groups, would confirm. Of the current 31 merging banks (17 from Iccrea and 14 from Ccb), 8 Bcc (of which 4 from Veneto) now have assets exceeding 350 million. Among them are institutions (Banca per il Trentino Alto Adige, Bcc Veneta and Bvr Banca) that in the last four years have incorporated three more, one after the other.

Recently, however, the Bccs of the groups are disappearing more rarely and always by incorporation: three in 2023 and four this year. While the 39 Raiffeisen banks of the South Tyrolean IPS are unchanged since 2018.

By now, the solidity of the Bccs - garrisoned by the Groups and the Ips - does not worry customers and members, who are, however, increasingly demanding. Territorial rootedness and capacity for relations are fundamental for local banks, but they are not enough. The demand for greater operational efficiency and more competitive commercial conditions is also becoming increasingly pressing from households and businesses. The answers for improvement - apart from the need to protect internal and territorial biodiversity - should come to Bccs more from the parent companies than from the dimensional growth pursued through mergers. After all, sustaining the service and income-generating capacity of Bccs, guaranteeing their stability and liquidity, is a task that the 2016 reform assigned to parent companies precisely to safeguard the future of individual member banks.

The smaller Bccs, in any case, have not disappeared. Out of 179 Bcc in the groups, 56 banks (Iccrea 44 and Ccb 12) have assets of less than 50 million (27 of which under 25 million). In their 2023 balance sheets, they record an average cost/income ratio of 58% and a Roe of 12%, without highlighting any capital criticalities. The confirmation is in the Cet1 ratio (25% average) and Texas ratio (11%). But above all in the 2023 statements on cross-guarantees: the parent company Ccb specifies that it has not implemented any new support measures in favour of affiliated banks, while Iccrea reports - moreover on banks that are not small - one for capitalisation (EUR 2.4 million to Centropadana) and one for liquidity (EUR 100 million to Banca di Pisa e Fornacette).

Mergers, therefore, are now deliberate by choice, rather than by necessity. In any case, the important thing - as already emerged during the Federcasse conference in June 2001 - is that the Bcc, in thinking about mergers, do not follow the wave of a fashion or the ambitions of their top management. And that decisions, at board and assembly meetings, are not taken on the basis of limited analyses and mere suppositions.