BNP Paribas Securities Services has been appointed by CNPR, the Italian pension fund for accountants, to provide securities lending services.
The mandate expands on their existing outsourcing deal, which was struck in 2019, with BNP Paribas agreeing to provide global custody services to CNPR’s €2 billion of assets over a course of five years, with the option of renewal for a further two years.
“We have carefully analysed the securities lending service of BNP Paribas Securities Services, which meets our expectations in terms of returns and guarantees. This new service will allow us to obtain additional revenues, which will be used to cover the administrative costs of the fund,” said Giuseppe Scolaro, vice president of CNPR.
Pension funds have turned to securities lending programmes in order to generate new incremental revenues from their portfolios. However, new light is being shone on whether these programmes coordinated with the environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles of pension funds and other investors.
“The securities lending programme we have put in place for CNPR has been designed to fulfil the operational and risk monitoring needs of CNPR,” added Andrea Cattaneo, general manager of BNP Paribas Securities Services Italy.
The agreement is the latest securities lending mandate to be awarded to BNP Paribas Securities Services in Italy.
Last year, the French custody bank was selected by Italian pension fund Fondoposte to provide securities lending services covering around €2.3 billion of assets, extending an outsourcing relationship that has been in place between the two firms since 2016.