BancaSai: it’s where you are Market evolution has meant that two traditionally separate industries – banking and insurance – have been able to find not just points of contact but genuine synergies. We have discovered in fact that banks represent major distribution channels for insurance products, and likewise that insurance companies, with their portfolio of policy holders, constitute a worthwhile contact point for bank customers. Add to these factors the obvious potential of Internet offerings, and the decision of the SAI Group to create BANCASAI seems perfectly logical. BancaSAI is in fact the new multi-channel bank that the Turin Insurance Group created to complete its offer of financial services, targeting even greater multi-functionality for insurance companies.
BancaSAI combines the more traditional possibilities of access via call center or through financial promoters in branch offices with a complete Internet banking service that makes use of the most advanced technologies. In order to be able to offer a complete service that meets the expectations of SAI’s customers and non-customers, the Turin Group decided to take as its partner one of the world’s top operators in the banking/finance industry, the French group Société Générale, which holds 30% of BancaSAI’s capital. With this agreement, BancaSAI is capable of offering its customers a whole series of cutting-edge financial products. Even the choice of a single branch, understood in the classic meaning of the term, is indicative of how the Bank intends to present itself on the market. The location is a historic building in the heart of Turin where the charm of a period building joins with the functionality of a cutting-edge bank in its customer care and service.
As we said, this Turin office is the bank’s only site, since it was decided to make use of the presence of almost 900 offices distributed all over Italy where 1,500 people work, including agents and sub-agents, who certainly represent one of the strong points not just of BancaSAI but of the entire Group. This presence is significant not just in numbers but in quality as well, because it is well-established with deep roots.
This is a network capable of offering its customers what they want today: security, service, personalized attention and assistance, thanks to the Groups’ decision to invest constantly in terms of specialization in multiple areas, thus ensuring that its own network of offices can respond effectively to all its customers’ needs, whether in insurance or in finance. In addition to its offices, BancaSAI has another important and widespread distribution channel for its financial products in the post offices, through an agreement signed with Poste Italiane that allows BancaSAI’s customers to perform some operations in post offices. In addition to these networks, the Bank’s multi-channel system includes the “virtual” network and the Call Center. The site www.banca sai.it was created making use of the most innovative and secure technologies.
The area reserved for SAI customers makes it possible to:
· Open an account, view its status at any time by requesting an account statement, and conducting operations such as payments and transfers.
· For holders of life-insurance policies or investment products, view their status, and, soon, the possibility of issuing subsequent instructions on funds and open-end investment companies.
And for those who do not yet hold any SAI product and want to become BancaSAI customers, there is the possibility of sending an initial application. Product Request allows one to send an e-mail and then be contacted by a financial promoter/agent who can then provide the acceptance contract. The utmost care has also been taken in setting up the Call Center, where 14 of the 50 people who currently work in BancaSAI are assigned, all between the ages of 28 and 30 and most of them university graduates. By calling toll-free 800-997788, which is active from 8:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, callers can get all types of information and assistance, keeping in mind that outside those hours it is still possible to use the automatic response for information on relations with BancaSAI. As for the new Bank’s offerings, they make available to its customers a financial circuit that features a broad range of account types and credit and debit cards. The range of BancaSAI’s products in fact includes a line of six accounts (SAI Network, which includes credit cards and ATM cards), 12 common funds (managed by SAI Savings Management and Société Générale for the international markets), two asset management types (SAI Real Estate Brokers), a Luxembourg open-end investment company (SAI SICAV), and four types of loans. And the objectives that Management has set for itself are certainly ambitious: 80,000 customers with deposits of 6,000 billion by 2005, but these targets are born out of the knowledge that good work has been done so far and will be carried forward with the same conviction and determination that has allowed SAI, now in its 80th year, to reach its leadership goals. It should also be underscored that although BancaSAI is a newcomer, it can avail itself of that significant pool of possible customers comprised of the Group’s almost 4 million policy holders, even though, as Dr. Carlo Ciani, president of BancaSAI and managing director of SAI, the Group intends to make current customers even more loyal while at the same time to bring in new ones.

traduzione Interpres - Giussano