Smart Bank: Pop. Cassinate in the field with Fitd support

An offer by Banca Popolare del Cassinate with the support of the Interbank Fund has popped up for the Smart Bank dossier. As reported by Il Sole 24Ore, the two commissioners appointed by Via Nazionale, Enrico Ajello and Andrea Guaccero, assisted by Prometeia, have received a proposal in recent weeks from the small but lively bank in central Italy, which has made a binding offer to purchase the bank (controlled by the Cirdan Fund), which had attracted the interest of a number of operators in recent months, including Unlimited and foreign groups.

However, the Lazio institution would not go it alone. In fact, the proposed purchase is conditional on obtaining a guarantee from a third-party institutional entity, which would be called upon to cover the potential risks hidden in the folds of the commissioned institution's balance sheet, risks in particular linked to a vehicle with financing with London counterparties. This is where the Interbank Fund would come in, which has reportedly already been informally approached to provide its support. Fitd's help - there is talk of a guarantee of around EUR 20 to 30 million - could in fact be triggered as part of a preventive intervention: an alternative solution to a compulsory administrative liquidation, already tried in the case of the former Aigis Banca, which later ended up in Banca Ifis. The Cassino-based bank's proposal is now on the table of the commissioners, who are assessing what to do and from whom a series of technical investigations are expected. It must be said that nothing is a foregone conclusion, since evolutions cannot be ruled out.

For the popolare del Cassinate, a bank well rooted in the Lazio region with 1.2 billion in deposits and 12 million in profits by the end of 2023, this would be an operation aimed at growth. The bank led by president Vincenzo Formisano would aim at Smart Bank to become its own digital bank with a projection on a national basis as well. The objective: in addition to funding, it would also sell non-core products for a local bank, from bancassurance to wealth management. Eventually, the added value resulting from this project would be reinvested in the development of the territorial base of the bank with its strong cooperative identity.

Developments will be seen. Smart Bank, born from the ashes of Banca del Sud in September 2022, had entered the Cirdan Group's perimeter following a recapitalisation a few weeks earlier. Zero branches, presented to the market with the declared objective of becoming 'the Apple Watch of investments', the Naples-based bank aimed to offer various advanced solutions based on a proprietary digital platform, from structured deposits (whose return is linked to the performance of the underlying, be it an index, a commodity, or a currency) to convertibles, from hedging derivatives to certificates. In order to do so, it had launched an aggressive funding campaign, including five-year step-up restricted deposit accounts with fixed incremental interest of up to 8.25 per cent, now guaranteed by the Interbank Fund.

After having ended up in Bankitalia's sights for serious accounting irregularities (there was talk of an erroneous weighting of the riskiness of assets on the balance sheet, which led to the lowering of capital ratios), in recent months Smart Bank, with around 150-200 million in funding on board, had entered the radar of a number of realities, from which some expressions of interest had arrived, as anticipated by Sole 24Ore on 21 June: illimity (potentially interested in the niche but profitable business of certificates) and a Spanish financial company hunting for banking licences to land in Italy. Alongside them was Popolare di Cassino, which has now taken the formal step. It will now be seen with what results.