How do you approach managing legal aspects during periods of instability or crises, and how does your legal strategy align with the broader business strategy to ensure the organisation’s resilience? 

From my perspective, the legal analysis should contribute to the definition of the business strategies and would no longer be considered just an implementation and monitoring “tool” of those strategies, especially in the current market scenario, which in recent years has been impacted by exogenous events that have also had significant consequences on the financial system. Consequently, legal aspects should be managed proactively, facilitating the identification of the most suitable solutions to ensure an organization’s resilience. The management and monitoring of legal risks have played and continue to play a fundamental role in the redesigning of the overall business strategy during the pandemic and post-pandemic period, also characterised by the well-known geo-political tensions. In this context, for example, the attention to compliance and “eligibility” criteria of loan guarantee, constitutes the focus of the legal activity, having those legal issues a specific and important impact also in terms of capital allocation and provisioning strategies. 

What are the main cases or transactions that you have been involved in recently?  

My bank is technically a Less significant Institution, Parent Company of a growing Banking Group, which combines the provision to clients of traditional banking and financial services with a broadly diversified activities also in non-typical sectors.  As a result, I have had the opportunity to deal with a variety of transactions, such as, more recently, the sale of the bank’s business as a going concern relating to the merchant acquiring to an Italian payment institution which is part of a leading European Group end-to-end payment service provider. On the other hand, for example, I have been involved in the transactions relating to our renewable energy companies, drafting memorandum of associations and articles of associations, sales agreements of minority shareholding and shareholders agreements. Regarding the regulatory activities, I directly managed the acquisition of the financial intermediary and the credit institution, as well as the subsequent partial demerger by incorporation of the latter into the holding company, which led to the current configuration of my banking group. 

How do you measure the impact of ESG initiatives on the company’s overall performance and reputation?  

In addition to our strategic investment in the renewable energy sector, we are preparing – according to the recommendations of the competent Authorities – to meet the challenges of sustainability by integrating ESG factors into our business processes and governance, fully aware that risks associated with climate change can also pose risks to the stability of the financial system. The measurement of the impact of ESG initiatives on our business model and related performance can be fully appreciated only in the light of the outcome of materiality analysis on risks, which is functional to the identification of a set of monitoring KPIs. In the meantime, we have devised new taxonomy aligned and suitability linked products, whose contractual drafts are characterised by a “tailor-made” legal structure. 

There is a strong focus on ensuring that the adopted ESG initiatives will not have a negative impact on the reputation of our company; hence the importance of training provisioned to directors and employees aimed at consolidating the Bank’s ESG culture, monitoring the effectiveness of the processes adopted and overseeing the way in which the initiatives adopted are communicated externally.