The Italian leasing arms of Société Générale,
Crédit Agricole and BNP Paribas are increasing new business
origination through the banking channel, embracing a model typical
of Italy’s largest lessors, including UniCredit Leasing and
Leasint.
BNP Paribas Lease Group (BPLG) Italia is
strengthening its Bank Leasing Services unit thanks to an agreement
last year with Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), the Italian bank
acquired by BPN Paribas in 2006.
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Managing director of BPLG Italia Denis
Delespaul said: “We signed a framework agreement with BNL last
year. We see BNL as our natural partner and will be working with
them both at retail and corporate division level.”
BPLG Italia is now Italy’s fifth largest
lessor with €1.3bn of new business signed last year. In the first
half of 2010, it signed €701m of new business, an 8 percent
increase compared with the first half of last year. BNL currently
represents 34 percent of the lessor’s new business
originations.
“We want the banking channel to grow more and
more in the future,” said Delespaul. He said that the company’s
goal is to have a bank serving as a channel for leasing just like
the BNP Paribas branches do for BPLG in France, and Fortis Bank
branches do in Belgium.
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By GlobalDataCrédit Agricole Leasing Italia (CALIT) is set
to benefit from its parent company’s new banking subsidiaries,
too.
CALIT’s majority shareholder since last year,
with 85 percent, is the Cariparma-Friuladria Group, a group owned
by Crédit Agricole with branches in central and northern Italy; the
remaining 15 percent is owned directly by Crédit Agricole Leasing
& Factoring.
The group comprises branches of Friuladria
bank and Cariparma, with the latter accounting for at least 80
percent of CALIT’s leasing originations.
CALIT managing director Alberto Bertanzetti
said: “We work jointly with the group’s banks, and the banking
channel is exclusive for us. It is our strategic choice: we believe
that our activity is an added value as it develops customers’
loyalty.”
The banking network will soon have an
additional 200 branches, half of them Cassa di Risparmio
della Spezia (Carispe), which Crédit Agricole bought from Intesa
Sanpaolo in June 2010.
In 2011, when the acquisition process is
complete, the total number of bank branches where CALIT can sell
its products will increase to around 1,000, with the group becoming
Italy’s seventh largest bank.
The branch expansion meant that in an overall
market declining by 30 percent last year, CALIT grew by 20 percent.
Growth in the first half of 2010 has been more modest, with a 2
percent volume increase, but the number of contracts increased 20
percent, in line with the lessor’s strategy to distribute
risks.
The leasing company’s market share is already
2.5 percent, more than doubling the 1 percent market share it had
in 2008. There are plans to gradually increase this figure.
“The target is to have the same market share
of our banking group and we expect to benefit from the new bank
branches,” Bertanzetti said.
SGEF Leasing has developed a similar approach.
It doesn’t work with brokers, but only through the banking and
vendor channels. Because its parent company, French bank Société
Générale, doesn’t have banking arms in Italy, its business model
relies on doing leasing for Italy’s small banks.
An SME economy
Managing director Carlo Mescieri explained:
“The Italian banking system is very fragmented, with over 1,000
banks still existing today. Many of the independent local banks
don’t have leasing as a product, so we offer it to them.”
The lessor manages the leasing business
arising from the corporate clients’ requests of its partner banks,
a few of which are also minority shareholders, with Société
Générale the majority shareholder.
According to Mescieri, the nature of Italy’s
banking system mirrors an economic landscape dominated by SMEs.
“SMEs are the backbone of Italy’s economy, 95
percent of Italian firms have fewer than 10 employees, and they
often are family-run businesses. In this scenario, small banks not
only survive, but they can flourish. We give them a good service,
good pricing and assistance, so these banks come to us for their
customers’ leasing needs.”
SGEF Leasing follows its parent company’s
strategy – what Mescieri calls the company’s identity card, with a
focus on the banking and vendor business – but it is also adapted
to the peculiarities of the Italian market.
As a consequence, it has a big focus on real
estate leasing, and has chosen to open offices in different
locations rather than one central point, so that it can be in close
contact with the territory it serves. It has 150 employees and
offices in Milano, Roma, Napoli, Treviso and Cesena.
Leasing volumes were 23 percent down last
year, at €827 million. This year, new business is “in line with the
rest of the market”, Mescieri said.
