BNP Paribas Securities Services (BP2S) Milan has been appointed by Cometa Pension Fund as depositary bank in Italy. The role was previously held by Intesa Sanpaolo, whose sold its securities services arm to State Street in December 2009.
The Cometa Pension Fund is the largest Italian pension fund with 5 billion of assets and approximately 500,000 subscribers. According to the press release accompanying the announcement: “The deal represents an important milestone for our development strategy aimed at providing sophisticated solutions to large pension funds through our MasterSuite product range.”
Fabio Ortolani, President of Cometa said: “By appointing BP2S, we at Cometa Pension Fund strongly feel that we will strengthen our strategic development. We have chosen BP2S after a detailed selection process among the most important Italian and international depositary banks. During the selection process, BP2S demonstrated the best solution in the market for our needs, particularly with regards to their accounting system, which will help us manage our portfolio more efficiently. Our choice was also driven by the fact that BP2S offers a global platform with a strong local presence in the Italian market, which is fundamental for us to support our subscribers.”