Banca Generali’s new Swiss unit appoints an experienced banker as CEO, another sign of the recovering prospects for Lugano’s financial hub.
The recent appointment of Renato Santi as CEO of Bank BG Suisse is just the latest sign of a budding recovery in the region’s financial industry.
According to official records, the Swiss unit of Italy’s Banca Generali was established last October in Lugano. It does not yet have a banking license, although it is hoping to receive one from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) this year.
Santi is an experienced banker who worked for more than 10 years at Banca della Svizzera Italiana (BSI) before it was taken over from EFG International, a Swiss private bank, in 2016. His last job at BSI was head of the Ticino, Zurich, and Italian regions. After his stint at BSI, Santi joined the Swiss business of Danish-Chinese bank Saxo although he left them last December to take up his new role at the start of 2022.
Generali first entered the Swiss market in 2019 with its now completed takeover of Valeur, a Lugano-based asset manager. The business was renamed BG Valeur under the operational management of Alida Carcano. According to sources, the asset manager will continue to exist alongside BG Suisse in future.
Banca Generali’s exact strategy for BG Suisse will be disclosed at an investor day in February, a group spokesperson said, with plans afoot to start a business in the second half of the year.
The launch of Bank BG Suisse is the third push into the Swiss market by a major Italian bank. The first was Intesa Sanpaolo’s takeover of a 69 percent stake in Geneva-based private bank Reyl.
Reyl is slated to serve the Italian financial institution as to its hub for European private banking. Lugano will play a central role in that as it is close to the Italian border, a fact also helped by Intesa’s takeover of Bank Morval in 2017. Its business in Southern Switzerland will be merged with Reyl’s.
The Ticino finance hub is gaining in importance after years of decline. Italy’s economic prosperity under Mario Draghi, who has served as the country’s prime minister since February 2021, is likely to accelerate that that trend.
Reflecting that, The Milan Exchange gained 20 percent in 2021, with Intesa Sanpaolo shares up by 16 percent, Generali’s gaining 30 percent, and Unicredit’s rising a very significant 75 percent.