written by Epic SIM
The financial industry is evolving at exponential pace, offering alternatives to the traditional banking model in financing Italian small and medium-sized enterprises. The broad scope is to always find new finance to support the real economy.
If we look at the scenario of a single European market for the securities issued by SMEs, there is a challenging opportunity at issue. In Italy we have a large amount of professionally managed private assets, something in the region of 3 trillion euros. On top of that we have approximately 1.7-1.8 trillion euros sitting unproductive in Bank accounts. Altogether, we have almost 5 trillion euros of under-exploited resources that can be employed to boost the growth and sustainable development of the country. This can be efficiently done by switching it into closed-end funds and private markets, in the area of 10% or even 15% of that.
This will result in an amount which is almost double that of the EU’s Recovery fund, providing fundamental additional resources to the real economy and more profitable investments for the private sector. Retail AUM performance in Italy is lower than in most European countries, and this is likely due to a portfolio allocation biased towards fixed
income products and with a limited share on alternatives.
The goal is ambitious, but achievable through a new financial ecosystem that bridges the gap between demand and supply. Working on a shorter supply chain means bringing liquidity providers closer to recipients, leveraging on three key elements: efficient use of resources, cutting-edge technology solutions and “just in time” to market. This is actually what we are working at right now as part of the Azimut “Synthetic Bank” project: combining the strength of a large and well-established asset manager with solid and developing fintech venture to launch the Italian recovery.
