Face to face with the new general manager of Banco di Sardgna, the credit institution linked to the Bper group.

Director, if you had to take out a mortgage today, would you choose a fixed rate or a variable rate?

"Very difficult question. If I had to do the operation today, perhaps I would do it at a variable rate. But what is my life prospect? How much do I earn and how much will I earn in the next few years? Everyone has to look at their own situation, think about their future. The rates are reaching a fairly low level, which could remain over time, if there were no external disturbances, like those we have experienced in recent years. Let's say that a young couple could also decide to do a fixed rate operation."

Mortgage for young couples: how much can you finance?

"The general rule in the banking world is that mortgages finance 80% of the purchase of the property. Banco di Sardegna - and not all banks have it - offers a specific product that allows you to finance up to 100% of the purchase of the house."

Is the cost of money higher in Sardinia?

"No. The rate of a mortgage depends fundamentally on three situations. The first is the risk profile of the customer. Banks are not obliged, but in order to correctly manage their activities, they are required to apply differentiated prices, taking into account the risk profile of the customers, the type of operation that is being carried out and how much is being financed. The second aspect is the type of property that is being purchased. Since the euro came into force, rates have become very similar across the entire territory of the European Union, although there are still differences that are linked to the economy of the country rather than to the moment of the mortgage market in the individual country."

What is the collection of the Bank in Sardinia?

"Twenty billion, it has grown in recent years. It indicates two things. The first: the roots of the Bank in the territory, the fact that it is considered by many Sardinians as the reference bank, the solid bank where they can deposit their savings and manage their investments. The second is the fact that Sardinia continues to be a region that generates savings. Sardinians are people who accumulate part of their income to allocate it to future investments, to the management of unforeseen events and to ensure an improvement in the quality of life".

And the jobs?

"Seven billion. This number tells us three things. That the region as a whole generates more savings than the investments that are made as a whole, both from the point of view of businesses and from the point of view of citizens. It also means that there is an important role that banks must play to create the flywheel, what is called financial leverage to start new business activities and make existing ones grow more. And it also tells us, if we look at the data from recent months, that jobs have grown, while at a national level they have decreased. It means that perhaps Sardinia is seizing opportunities, is experiencing a more positive moment from this point of view. However, it means that many players are working together to create those opportunities here, those situations that allow banks to make jobs but, above all, the region to grow."

If you were an entrepreneur, would you knock on the door of the Banco di Sardegna to invest where?

"There are so many opportunities and so many chances in the two sectors that have driven the most in recent years: tourism and agro-pastoral. In the latter there are examples of excellence, but also fragility."

A bit like the Post Office, the Bank also had a sign in almost every municipality. Was the closure policy influenced by having entered the large Bper family?

"No, no, it has nothing to do with it. The population is moving towards the cities and this forces the banks to have to manage their presence in the territory and - in many cases - to simplify it. If people leave the country, the bank finds itself in the difficulty of having to understand if its presence is fully justified. We know that many times abandoning a country becomes a significant sacrifice for the people who still live there, but it is not the bank that determines the impoverishment. And the fact that Banco di Sardegna is no longer an autonomous bank certainly has nothing to do with it."

Sassari and Cagliari had decision-making power. On the Bper website we read that the banks of the group "are autonomous and deeply tied to the territories", but how much do decisions actually pass through Modena today?

"Every time the Bank or the other banks in the group have ideas that can modify, innovate, improve, change the dynamics, the characteristics of services produced, organizational models, ways of working, it is clear that we discuss it together. This offers a huge opportunity to do things together, do more things and do them in a more precise, more accurate, more sensible way. From the experience I have had in these months in which I have been here, I have never seen Modena or Milan say no to a good idea and on the other hand I have seen Modena and Milan as the facilitators to do things that we could not have done alone. And to do it better."

And in granting credit?

"I have to say that I have never seen a different view of a customer when it comes to saying yes or no. There may be different points of view, but there would be the same points of view if the bank were autonomous."

Banco di Sardegna is the new treasurer of the Region. You may not even answer: did the four months of provisional exercise create any difficulties for you?

"No, not from this point of view. The treasury activity is a service that we perform for the regional body and the public bodies of the territory. From a technical point of view there have been no impacts."

Banking risk fills the pages of newspapers. Savers, families, and businesses do not always have the tools to understand: is it justified to be afraid?

“No, absolutely not. Many are afraid of these concentration trends that lead to the creation of larger banking groups. They base this fear on the fear that larger banks will lose their attention to the territory. It is exactly the opposite. The largest banks, especially if they continue to keep within their DNA the attention to the realities they follow, become structures that are even more capable of creating value. We must understand that the market has become increasingly European, even global. Being large helps banks to be more solid, more capable of attracting capital and, precisely for this reason, more capable of deliberating even more values in the territory in which they work. In the end, what remains is the place where you do business. Let's take Banco di Sardegna. Becoming part of the Bper group has helped it to be more solid, to be more capable of resisting the difficulties that can arise from external situations, to be more capable of producing and providing services that are more aligned with the expectations of consumers and businesses.”

With international turbulence, the saver is never safe. And the banks?

"I can speak for the Bank, for the Bper group, perhaps for the Italian and European market. Over the years, the level of solidity of the banks has increased and also the level of ability of the banks to deal with these exogenous and often unpredictable elements that materialize very quickly. The Italian banking system is solid. The banks are solid, so the financial instruments that the banks are able to develop together with their partners, and that they offer to savers as investment tools, are capable of managing these situations of disruption, much more than the individual investor."

Let's get back to our home: on average, how much time passes from the request for financing to its disbursement?

"I answer in a somewhat sibylline way: too much. We are fast on many products, we are slow on others. There is really a diversification, a dispersion of this case study. Our goal is to become faster, more direct and simpler. The idea is that some answers can even be given in real time, when the request for financing is simple, based on a clear, transparent, standard situation. And maybe it takes a few weeks when it comes to doing some more in-depth analysis, when the need is a bit more complicated, the company's situation is not the standard one of financing, of help with working capital for a growth operation, but perhaps it is linked to a moment of difficulty in the sector or the company. We are not aligned with what we would like to be, we are working on it."

Banco di Sardegna has historically supported the economic system. Will it continue to do so?

"Banks have as their reason for existence that of making the territory in which they operate grow and create value. We have the advantage over many other banks of being on an Island, of being an important bank for the Island. The measure of how well we do our job comes from the fact that the customers, the communities, the people for whom we work recognize a value that is created. Here, the goal is to work even more for Sardinia".

Emanuel Dessi

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