There are various technical hypotheses for the transformation of the mutual banks currently being discussed in view of the reform, but one of them seems particularly interesting and is represented by the spin-off of their banking activities into a vehicle having the legal form of a SPA which would therefore be owned initially 100% by the cooperative whose members would be the same as the original BCC. This solution tends to maintain the traditional mutualistic values of the mutual banks, while delegating the management of banking activities to a new type of vehicle, more suitable for dealing with markets that have changed considerably compared to the past and better positioned also with regard to the general rules, which for today's mutual banks are even heavier than those envisaged for banks of other types.
The model just mentioned should not be considered an arrival point in the evolution of the CCBs, but only a starting point for a process which in the medium term should lead to a unitary structure of the two components forming part of the aforementioned model and therefore to a SPA into which the members of the cooperative would converge, changing their role also to take into account the changes in their values and objectives determined by the evolution in the meantime which has taken place in the society of men and women. The new SPA thus established should then be able to make the most of the economic, financial and commercial potential inherent in its new legal form.
Certainly it would not be an easy passage, but I believe it will be almost indispensable and therefore it is necessary to take it into account from the beginning of the transformation process which will lead to the mixed model mentioned above.
To understand the various opportunities that the definitive model of the SPA could allow, it is necessary to consider that so far the income objective, which will be essential in the SPA, has in any case been constantly achieved in the best BCCs, where profits have made it possible to accumulate resources that have become a decisive part of the their heritage. Following the transformation into a SPA, the profits should also be able to ensure the shareholders who have become shareholders satisfactory dividends, which make their investment competitive with the alternatives offered by the market.
The objective of distributing real dividends will be a relative novelty for the mutual shareholders of the CCBs, hitherto called upon to make modest efforts to contribute capital and motivated in their investment by largely non-economic and financial considerations in the strict sense. On the other hand, the goal of profitability in a new way could weigh on the conditions under which the mutual banks provide services to shareholders, which could become - other conditions being equal - less attractive than those practiced hitherto. All these things will have to be coordinated with great balance and common sense to keep the corporate structures firm and to avoid dangerous changes in their historical components.
The latter have always ensured a very close connection between the CCBs and the territories in which they work, which has been one of the main protagonists of their successes and, moreover, also of the successes of the territories themselves. This is an indispensable strategic point regardless of the legal form of a small bank which in fact has no alternatives at least until it decides to be a retail banking specialist and does not choose, which is moreover very difficult, to become a company specialized, for example in private banking and leasing or in other sectors of activity permitted by the banking law.
In truth, the legal form, not so much in itself but rather due to the consequences it produces on the corporate objectives and on the culture of all its stakeholders and, first and foremost, of the human resources employed, can condition even to a significant extent the action of a small bank towards the territory and especially towards the businesses and households that operate there. The structure of the SPA can produce - other conditions being equal - the greatest corporate efficiency both in terms of production and in terms of distribution.
If well managed banking enterprises of this type should aim at the massive use of customer relations in the interest of the latter but also in that of the bank. Furthermore, it could be the best premise for expanding the shareholding structure and also for proceeding with the aggregations deemed appropriate or even necessary to face the market more profitably and to become more competitive, thanks also to the economies of scale that the larger dimensions assumed could also allow with reference to the costs that could be saved in the ways in which the increasingly onerous rules that I mentioned earlier could be respected.
After all, the transformation of cooperative or mutual banks into SPAs is nothing new and has been followed for years in other stages as well. I remember the example of the United States because the Wall Street Journal, a very attentive observer of what happens in banking systems around the world, had already magnified the case of a banking cooperative operating in the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho a year and a half ago which had had great success and reiterated the usefulness of the formula a few weeks ago with reference to another bank of the same type operating in Massachusetts whose shares have risen considerably after the transformation which was truly an important premise for their development quantitative and qualitative.
This does not mean at all that the Italian BCCs must immediately and compulsorily transform themselves into SPAs, unless they are forced to do so by the rules that could be imposed on them. Instead, this could be achieved gradually by managing to combine tradition and the future according to a scheme that could also allow the survival and development of single efficient and effective BCCs at the service of the territories in which they are inserted and able to best satisfy their stakeholders.
At the international level, however, it has been demonstrated that the old mutual formula, which sooner or later could be abandoned, is well maintained only where it has a multi-stage organization with a long and consolidated tradition, with a SPA at the top which is owned by the regional or local funds and with rules of strict management, which leave the individual components with very limited autonomy. Analyzing what is happening in our country, we must honestly recognize that we are not in these conditions and we must take this into account when we speak of the future of the CCBs.
