Purpose Day 2025 - Andrea Orcel Interview

Let me give you another example. European families currently have 30 to 35 percent of their wealth in bank deposits and cash equivalents. The United States has 10 percent. American investments are 300 percent of GDP, European investments are 98 percent, and British are 150 percent. Another important issue: our 98 percent isn't invested in European companies — it's invested in American companies. Why? Because European companies don't have capital markets, there's no liquidity, so not only are we stuck in deposits instead of productive instruments, but we further fuel America's growth. If we don't move toward a unified European capital market and stronger banks, we won't succeed with any project. First there must be the project, but second there must be the fuel to finance it, and there isn't enough fuel. Right now everyone talks about Germany because they found 1,000 billion to invest, but they don't have another 2,000. Other European countries can't afford to do this. This is a very important issue that combines with true European integration — which doesn't mean giving up our differences. As some of you know, I'm from Rome. I was called to UniCredit, I'm in Milan, and when people say 'Ah, but you're not German, you're Italian,' I tell them, 'Look, I'm from Rome, and like all Romans say, the best thing about Milan is the train to Rome.' I don't need to go to Frankfurt to feel different. All of Europe has very different peculiarities. If you talk to a Bavarian from Munich versus someone from Essen or Frankfurt — two different worlds. The problem is we want to fragment everything at a microscopic level, when instead we should be very proud of our differences and prove we're better. But there are things that define us — defense, infrastructure, energy, financial power — that if we put these engines in common, we can develop everything. This is what I believe, and it's what Draghi, Letta, and so many others continue to say, yet we always find excuses not to do it. No domestic market is large enough to allow a market-leading institution to truly become large. So the border problem remains important to overcome. They're all small. We don't have the balance sheets to do what we're asked to do. Let me give you an example — the only country that perhaps understood this, maybe because it almost went to zero: Greece. When we made our investments in Alpha, from the Prime Minister to the Finance Minister, the central bank, the local society — great positive acclaim. I dined with them, and they asked what this means. First, you're bringing the balance sheet of a bank ten times Alpha's size that can invest in Greece's transformation because I no longer have Alpha's concentration limit. Second, you're investing billions in the country by buying Alpha's shares. Third, you're diversifying Alpha — if something happens, UniCredit takes the remaining risk. They saw it as an influx of capital and strengthening of the capacity to support the country's transformation. But all of us see it completely differently.