Intesa Sanpaolo and Confindustria: the cap for SMEs rises to 100 billion euro

The most important aspects of the partnership include credit access, innovation and new entrepreneurship. Guidelines underlying the action plan that led to the identification of a series of intangible qualitative factors, such as investments in research and innovation, potentially conducive to encouraging business growth. For this reason, Intesa Sanpaolo adopted a qualitative questionnaire in the credit assessment of small and medium-sized enterprises that takes into account these aspects combined with the financial ones.
This made it possible to measure the competitive positioning of SMEs and the real growth prospects, overcoming the traditional bank-enterprise relationship, linked to historical balance sheet data. Great attention is then paid to the development of human capital and to the dimensional growth and capitalisation processes, and an important accompaniment to Borsa Italiana Elite Programme is underway, which involved the participation of over 100 companies in one year.
For the Chairman of Confindustria, Vincenzo Boccia, the ten-year partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo has evolved by seizing “all the aspects required for the development of the industrial system. Today, traditional finance is not enough: more tools are needed to meet the needs of the real economy. The collaboration has set as a priority the development of innovative finance as a strategic function for companies", with significant efforts to extend and diversify "the sources of financing, increase their capitalisation and bring them closer to the markets".
Carlo Robiglio, Chairman of Piccola Industria and Confindustria, recalled how central the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises is in Italy, highlighting how "the path with Intesa Sanpaolo has enabled" to increase support "for SMEs in facing daily challenges, with specific tools capable of transforming emergencies into opportunities”.
Stefano Barrese, Head of the Banca dei Territori Division of Intesa Sanpaolo, underlined that the collaboration with Confindustria Piccola Industria has gradually strengthened, as the figures testify: "In the first half of this year, we allocated around 11 billion euro to the business world, confirming our role as the driving force behind development. Our cooperation with Confindustria envisages a new way of banking through the enhancement of qualitative factors to support the development of companies".

_{October 2019}