Identification of the UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena banking groupsas other systemically important institutions authorized to operate in Italy

The Bank of Italy has identified, for the year 2023, UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena banking groups as other systemically important institutions (O-SIIs) authorized to operate in Italy.

UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco BPM and Monte dei Paschi di Siena will have to maintain from 1 January 2023 a capital buffer of 1.00, 0.75, 0.25 and 0.25 per cent, respectively, of their total risk-weighted exposure.

The decision was taken pursuant to Bank of Italy Circular No. 285/2013 (prudential regulations for banks), which implements Directive 2013/36/EU and specifies the criteria on which the methodology for identifying O-SIIs is based. The assessment was conducted in accordance with the European Banking Authority Guidelines (EBA/GL/2014/10), which set out the criteria and data required to identify O-SIIs in EU jurisdictions.

The assessment covered all banking groups, as well as banks not part of a banking group, operating in Italy. The identification considered, for each bank/banking group, the contribution of the four categories indicated in the EBA guidelines, i.e. size, importance for the Italian economy, complexity and interconnectedness with the financial system.

Considering the data as at 31 December 2021, the overall score that indicates the domestic systemic importance of UniCredit, Intesa Sanpaolo and Banco BPM is above the threshold of 350 basis points that the EBA Guidelines use to identify O-SIIs (see Table 1).

Instead for Monte dei Paschi di Siena the overall score is below the threshold established for automatic identification as an O-SII. However, more than half of the decrease in the score from the previous year is due to developments in the interconnectedness category, which includes assets and liabilities vis-à-vis banks and other financial intermediaries, which are historically volatile. In light of the importance of the banking group in domestic funding and lending activities and the current uncertainty about developments in the economic situation, the Bank of Italy, exercising its supervisory judgment, has decided to identify MPS as an O-SII also for 2023.

To calibrate the O-SII buffer, the framework proposed last year was maintained, based on six buckets of systemic importance. Each bucket is associated with a higher buffer, with increments of 0.25 percentage points (see Table 2).

Pursuant to the regulations, the identification of O-SIIs and the level of the O-SII buffers will be reviewed at least once a year.