Savings and investments
Banks play an essential function in channelling customers' savings towards financial and insurance investments.
Banks are in fact intermediaries authorised to provide investment services (investment advice, portfolio management, reception and transmission of orders, dealing on own account, execution of orders on behalf of clients, underwriting and/or placement on the basis of an irrevocable commitment to the issuer).
All investment services relate to financial instruments, the term referring mainly to shares, bonds, government securities, mutual fund shares, contracts and derivatives.
Banks are also authorised to distribute insurance investment products on an advisory basis: guaranteed capital policies (life class I), unit-linked policies (life class III), capitalisation life policies (life class V) and multi-branch policies, which combine aspects of life class I and life class III.
The provision of investment services and the distribution of insurance investment products is regulated by legislation:
- European: mainly the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive 2014/65/EU (better known as MiFID II) and the Insurance Distribution Directive 2016/97/EU (better known as IDD);
- national transposition of European legislation, consisting of the Consolidated Law on Finance (TUF) pursuant to Legislative Decree No 58 of 24 February 1998, and the Private Insurance Code (CAP) pursuant to Legislative Decree No 209 of 7 September 2005.
Banks also provide support services to companies to access capital markets. In fact, companies can raise resources by listing their share capital and issuing bonds.
MiFID2
The ABI, together with the Consumer Associations, has drawn up a number of information guides to explain in a clear and simple manner the new obligations that MiFID2 has placed on banks and other intermediaries providing investment services in order to strengthen customer protection. They cover the disclosure of costs and charges on investments and the integration of the client profiling questionnaire with the collection of client preferences.
MiFID2 profiling questionnaire enriched with sustainability preferences
Guide
9 June 2023MiFID2: clearer and more comprehensive information on investment costs and charges
Guide - Pdf
29 January 2021Individual Savings Plans (PIR)
PIRs are medium- to long-term forms of investment specifically regulated by Italian law to direct savings towards companies and which, if specific requirements are met, allow subscribers to obtain important tax benefits.
PIRs are medium- to long-term forms of investment specifically regulated by Italian law to direct savings towards companies and which, if specific requirements are met, allow subscribers to obtain important tax benefits.
Application form for the Transferable Securities Account Service (TDT)
The Securities Dossier Transfer Service (TDT) allows a client to apply to a bank ('new bank') to take over the necessary steps to automatically transfer the financial instruments held in the client's existing dossier with another bank ('original bank' and 'original dossier') to the dossier opened by the client with the same bank ('new dossier'), as well as to manage the request to change the placing bank with regard to non-dematerialised UCITS units or shares.
The request for the DTT service must be made by the customer by filling in the appropriate form, which is defined by an interbank regulation.