Italian Credit Bank

(Crédito Italiano), one of the three most important joint-stock commercial banks in Italy, which together make up the group of “banks of national significance.” The Institute for the Reconstruction of Industry owns 81 percent of its shares. Its board of directors includes representatives from the major Italian monopolies Fiat and Montecatini Edison.

The Italian Credit Bank was founded in 1870 in Genoa with the backing of German capital. It received its present name in 1895. Originally it was an all-purpose deposit and investment bank. In 1930 it merged with the National Credit Bank and received aid from the government in return for part of its stock and the transfer of long-term investments in industrial enterprises to special state institutes. Since then it has been functioning as a deposit bank, carrying out all types of short-term credit operations. In 1946 it founded, together with the two other banks of national significance (the Bank of Rome and the Italian Commercial Bank), a special institution for medium-term credit, Mediobanca, in Milan. The Italian Credit Bank has shares in other Italian medium-term credit institutions, as well as in several Swiss and international investing companies. As of 1971 it had 299 branches. It has representatives in Great Britain, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, the USA, Argentina, and Brazil. As of 1971 it had a balance total of 4, 790 billion lire, deposits of 4, 148 billion lire, discount-loan operations amounting to 2, 326 billion lire, securities of 615 billion lire, and capital and reserves of 58.2 billion lire.