UniCredit said the aim was to give smaller businesses access to products and services developed by its corporate solutions division, such as advisory or capital markets access.
The new streamlined structure will be led by Massimiliano Mastalia, who joined the group in November after previous roles at BNL, the Italian arm of BNP Paribas (OTC:BNPQY), and as co-founder of instant-lending fintech Prestatech.
Under the previous set-up, UniCredit’s Italian corporate division served companies with revenues of at least 5 million euros ($5.7 million).
Smaller businesses belonged, like individuals, to the bank’s retail division, while very large firms fell under the investment banking arm.
Italian companies are typically very small. Some 98% of firms have fewer than 10 staff.
Reporting to Mastalia, Francesco Iannella will lead the small business segment for companies with a turnover of up to 50 million euros.
Lucio Izzi will be in charge of companies with up to 1 billion euros in revenues as head of corporate, and Monica Campilongo of large corporate Italy.
“One of the priorities of the new corporate function led by Massimiliano Mastalia is to support innovation and the sustainable transformation of companies’ business models,” Unicredit (MI:CRDI) said.($1 = 0.8821 euros)
