How relations between the CDP and the Italian Post Office will change
All the news on the agreement between Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Cdp) and Poste Italiane for the distribution of postal vouchers and booklets. The article by Emanuela Rossi
A new three-year agreement has been signed between Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Cdp) and Poste Italiane for the distribution of postal vouchers and booklets. The signing comes one year after the expiry of the previous one, for the pandemic – say the parties involved – but perhaps also – according to Il Sole 24 Ore – for the search for an alignment of interests between the two parties at the negotiating table. Therefore, the agreement has retroactive validity, from 1 January 2021, and will last until 31 December 2024. In the meantime, Poste has continued the placement service on an exclusive basis since "the service is qualified by law of general economic interest" and therefore “it is unthinkable to think of stopping the most stable source of retail financing to the state coffers”.
WHAT THE NEW AGREEMENT PROVIDES FOR
The new agreement signed by Cdp, as broadcaster, and by Poste Italiane, as distributor, concerns postal savings, which is guaranteed by the Italian Republic, and which includes Postal Savings Books for a total of 103 billion and interest-bearing bonds. Postal for a total of 216 billion. These are savings products that have existed for almost 150 years and are held by 27 million Italians. Cdp and Poste "collaborate" in the sector since 1993 thanks to the legislative provision that sanctioned the wedding.
The agreement was further strengthened with an agreement covering the period of the 2022-2024 CDP Strategic Plan and that of Poste Italiane's 2024 Sustain and Innovate plan.
As a joint note informs, the placement and management of Coupons and Passbooks will continue to be remunerated by annual commissions, differentiated on the basis of the type of products, and the amount of which remains substantially in line with previous years, with a minimum of 1, 6 billion and a maximum of 1.85 billion, against agreed net funding targets. Therefore, over the three years, the alliance is worth a figure between a minimum of 6.4 billion and a maximum of 7.4 billion.
It is also specified that the remuneration scheme for the placement of the Coupons, previously based mainly on up-front commissions, now provides for a mixed remuneration, partly linked to up-front commissions (differentiated by year of issue and type of Coupon) and in part to annual management fees (differentiated by year of issue of the voucher), which better guarantees the sustainability of the service.
According to the Confindustria newspaper, a novelty consists in Cdp's decision not to knock on the door of small savers in the next three years by issuing a retail bond, as happened instead in 2015 and 2019 after the Renzi government had extended the favorable tax treatment of bonds. to the bonds issued by the Cassa. In fact, the agreement does not refer to the volume of CDP bonds to be placed in order to calculate the remuneration to be paid to Poste Italiane.
The signed agreement will be effective following the signing of the agreement between CDP and the Ministry of Economy and Finance for the management of the coupons of the series transferred to the Mef, which should occur in the first months of the new year. It should be remembered that the Treasury holds 29.3% of Poste Italiane and 82.8% of Cdp, which has 35% of Poste in its pocket.
THE GOVERNANCE
Governance mechanisms are also envisaged to provide supervision for activities and investments relating to postal savings collection services. To this end, a Steering Committee – chaired by the BancoPosta manager of Poste Italiane by the chief financial officer of Cdp – is set up, which can convene the Supervisory Committee, composed of Dario Scannapieco, CEO and general manager of Cdp, and Matteo Del Fante, his counterpart in Poste Italiane. The Supervisory Committee has the task of resolving the disagreements that the Steering Committee was unable to resolve.
THE COMMENT OF SCANNAPIECO AND DEL FANTE
Definitely satisfied with Scannapieco and Del Fante. For the CEO and CEO of the Cassa, “the new agreement guarantees the continuity of deposits and offers a prospect of further development of Postal Savings. This confirms – he continued – CDP's bond with the territory where we collect resources through vouchers and booklets which we then reinvest in local communities, in support of public administrations, businesses and families, in line with the 2022-2024 Strategic Plan which as key principles: sustainability, additionality and subsidiarity with respect to the market. Thanks to the collaboration with the Post Office – concluded Scannapieco -, Italian savings are transformed into a driving force for sustainable growth, favoring strategic investments and the country's competitiveness ".
Del Fante echoes that “the terms of this agreement make it possible to achieve the financial objectives relating to the postal savings distribution commissions envisaged in our 24SI plan in a sustainable way. Postal Savings – the manager recalled – represents the most stable source of retail financing of public spending and is the Italians' favorite savings product. We are proud to continue to provide this Service of General Economic Interest, once again confirming our role as a strategic pillar for Italy ".
THE LATEST DATA ON POSTAL SAVINGS
As Milano Finanza recalls, in September 2021 the average balance – equal to 318.8 billion – was up compared to 316.1 billion a year earlier, while net inflows for the nine months were negative for 4.9 billion compared to -426. million in September 2020, mainly due to outflows on passbooks (-3.2 billion), although this is a non-homogeneous figure because it does not include the accrual of pensions paid in January 2021 whose crediting to passbooks was made – for a amount equal to 2.55 billion – at the end of December 2020.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/come-cambieranno-i-rapporti-fra-cdp-e-poste-italiane/ on Sun, 16 Jan 2022 15:00:07 +0000.