About us

Pri.Banks was established in 1954 to represent banks with exclusively private ownership, in a context where banks were predominantly state-owned.

Despite the Italian banking system has since shifted progressively towards full privatisation, the Association has continued to perform its original mission of representing and innovating the banking tradition inspired by values of prudence, transparency, soundness, trustworthiness, and accountability.

Today more than ever, going “back to the future” is in line with the culture of safeguarding savers and the real economy that is strongly supported by the European Central Bank and the rest of the international surveillance bodies.

The values Pri.Banks stands for originate from the nature of those same banks that have chosen to share them:

  • banks held by one family or with strong reference shareholding often engaged in operation management, to guarantee ethical governance based on personal accountability;
  • banks that are strongly connected to the area, in which they were established and that based on mutual knowledge and trust serve as a reference point for households and for the development of the local economic and manufacturing system;
  • in response to the increasing banking disintermediation that is being brought about by the rise of new technologies.