Supporting companies engaged in innovation and digital transformation processes through specialized consultancy, dedicated financing and supply chain credit: this is the objective of the memorandum of understanding signed by UBI Banca and Confindustria Lombardia. The agreement represents a further step in the synergy activated between the credit institution and the Confindustria system and is part of the partnership launched last March as part of the Credit project activated by Lombard industrialists, created with the aim of facilitating access SMEs, with particular reference to those realities that have not been able to finance growth and development, to bank financing instruments dedicated to investments, especially those intended for supply chains and industry 4.0.
The agreement provides for the important involvement of the Lombardy Digital Innovation Hub, a key role in offering concrete support to companies through the launch of a joint training course between UBI Banca and the association of industrialists on how to evaluate investment projects of businesses, credit and the facilitation tools offered by Impresa 4.0. The collaboration aims to enhance the "Supplies 4.0" in order to improve the ability to bring credit to the companies that are part of it. With this objective, Confindustria Lombardia and the Bank, with the support of the DIH Lombardia, will explore the needs of the realities belonging to the industrial chains to which they will adapt a specific credit offer. The partnership will allow businesses to access the Plafond Research, Development and Innovation from 1 billion euros through a bank offer with medium and long-term loans and leasing.
Great attention to social responsibility as a competitiveness strategy: projects oriented towards sustainability are targets of investment analyses. These are entrepreneurial initiatives aimed at reducing the environmental impact, maintaining or creating new jobs, creating public-private partnerships, improving welfare levels and contributing, with dedicated projects, to supporting disadvantaged areas or areas affected by natural disasters.
"Business competitiveness and innovation in the productive world are the objectives of the work started with the Confindustria system at a national level and the agreement signed with Confindustria Lombardia falls within this context" he says Frederik Geertman, Chief Commercial Officer and Deputy General Manager of UBI Banca. “Our bank provides a network of specialists connected to the Digital Innovation Hub who are competent in the instruments of the National Business Plan 4.0 and in the financing of transformation projects, also through subsidized funds and access to the capital market. As UBI Banca we are doing our part by working in close synergy with the protagonists of the local economic system”.
“Today we are adding a new element to the Confindustria Lombardia Credit project – he declares Marco Bonometti, President of Confindustria Lombardia –, a project born in the interest of our SMEs and the Lombard territories. After the framework agreement signed last 4 March with the five main credit institutions, the one with UBI is already the third bilateral agreement signed in order to give operational follow-up to the framework agreement. With UBI we have focused on supporting investments in innovation and digitalisation, two competitive levers that are no longer optional but mandatory for companies. For this reason, the role of the Lombardy Digital Innovation Hub will be central in the evaluation and support process for businesses. We want to support the Lombard industrial chains, which are our strategic asset. In the face of technological change, we want to put all companies in a position to be able to face this important challenge, to defend the competitiveness and growth of our production. To do this, companies, especially small ones, must be able to make the necessary investments, creating new, more performing products and adopting new digitalised, more modern and more competitive processes", he concluded. Bonometti.
“The growth of companies in our area sees digital solutions as an enabling factor” – he declares Gianluigi Viscardi, President of DIH Lombardy-, for this reason, the agreement signed today offers a further tool to be implemented in the portfolio of the Digital Innovation Hub Lombardia and of the territorial antennas that make it up. I have always been convinced that the ability to create a system represents an added value for our SMEs also and above all as a lever to face the challenges of digital transformation" he concludes Viscardi.
