A Bank for NonProfits

ALUMNUS GUIDO CISTERNINO HAS HANDLED THE THIRD SECTOR FOR UBI BANCA SINCE 2011, AND THE PROJECT CONTINUES TO GROW


The mission of alumnus Guido Cisternino is to address the needs of the changing, growing, and evolving world of charities and non-profit organizations, the so-called third sector, after  the business and government sectors. He graduated in Business Administration in 1988 and did most of his career in finance. Then, in 2011, he was appointed head of the newly-created social enterprise credit unit of UBI Banca that deals with the variegated world of not-for-profit organizations.
 
"We were born as a specialized organizational unit with a precise strategic input coming from the top," Cisternino explains, "we had to take greatly improve the effectiveness of the bank’s activities in support of social entrepreneurship and the non-profit sector in general, in a macroeconomic context dominated by the structural decline of the state’s role, and crisis of the old welfare state. Banks are increasingly engaged in activities related to the world of non-profits, but being considered the benchmark of the credit industry in this area is a source of great pride."

Social bonds are a recent financial innovation to support social innovation. They were acknowledged by the National Award for Innovation conferred by the President of the Italian Republic in 2013, and in 2014 they were presented to the G8 Social Impact Investment task force: "Since 2012 we have placed 88 issues of social bonds, for a total value of about €1 billion. These are basically bonds that are issued to fund high social-value initiatives, which our clients have come to appreciate, since they have enthusiastically underwritten all our bonds."

Cisternino has gotten involved with non-profits gradually over the years, at the end of a long career that previously saw him working in other customer segments, such as corporate finance and commercial lending to SMEs: "I would define my present job as an evolution. I have always been fortunate to put my skills and experience at the service of clients, discussing their problem with them  and providing them with innovative solutions and support. This project has been steadily growing; we started out as an organizational unit for the retail credit market, and we have now become a full-fledged commercial division of UBI Banca ".
 

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Alex Foti