BancoPosta is the Italian postal savings system that operates as a unit of the Italian Post Office providing financial services, including savings accounts, prepaid cards, exchange brokerage services, investment services, insurance, and various payment services. BancoPosta does not have a

banking license A banking licence is a legal prerequisite for a financial institution that wants to carry on a banking business. Under the laws of most jurisdictions, a business is not permitted to carry words like a ''bank'', ''insurance'', ''national'' in th ...

and cannot directly provide

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

s to third parties, but is involved in the promotion and placement of public loans granted by banks and financial intermediaries. The bank services are available at all post offices in Italy.

History

The Poste Italiane always provided the postal savings deposits and offered Post Office Giro Institutions payments (POGIs). Having performed the function of collecting postal savings since 1875, with postal savings accounts being available since 1917. The BancoPosta was founded formally in 1999 after the restructuring by CEO Corrado Passera. It operates under the Financial Services Division company and offers collections and payments, the collection of savings and insurance products for the public. In 2000 was launched the BancoPosta account, the

debit card A debit card, also known as a check card or bank card is a payment card that can be used in place of cash to make purchases. The term '' plastic card'' includes the above and as an identity document. These are similar to a credit card, but u ...

Postamat and

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

BancoPosta Mastercard, going from 175,000 accounts in December 1999 to 1.68 million in December 2001. The success of the account and the consequent restoration was mainly due to computerization of the 14,000

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

s and creation of a new technology infrastructure (with a total budget of 670 billion lire) which allowed to improve quality and returns. Since 2001, the bank from a mere

asset manager Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

, also becomes a financial intermediary, as it is authorized by the Presidential Decree 144/01 to propose to the public the equities, bonds, shares of investment funds and loans and financing, although with above restrictions: until then the 14,000 post offices could only sell government bonds and those of the privatization.

References

''Article contains translated text from Bancoposta on the Italian Wikipedia retrieved on 17 March 2017.''

Sources

* * * Il circuito Bancoposta, di Giuseppina Chesini - Giuffrè Editore pp. 51, 54 * {{Portal, Banks Banks of Italy Postal system of Italy Banks established in 1999 1999 establishments in Italy Postal savings system