“BANKS MUST DO THE RIGHT THING!”

CEO Jean Pierre Mustier spoke yesterday during the Standard & Poor’s Global Conference, highlighting the importance of change and having a clear purpose.

Asked about M&A, where speculation has recently been fuelled by the ECB’s request that Eurozone banks postpone dividends, he commented: “There have been few transactions, and these have not been very large. M&A is not a solution. We have been very clear: no M&A, we prefer to transform rather than integrate.”

Explaining his view on the future of the banking sector, he said: “In this environment, where things change, we have to change. We have to adapt our interactions with clients, employees and the environment, with a continuous focus on sustainability.”

“All companies must redefine their purpose, their sense of what they do for all their stakeholders,” Mustier highlighted. It is today crucial “to be able to attract and retain clients, but it is equally important to be able attract and retain talented people.” For a bank this means embracing “a long term view on social interaction and on governance,” he continued.

“I think it is extremely important that banks take a step back, look at their business model, their interactions with all their stakeholders and transform their activity in the right way,” he added.

“At UniCredit,” he concluded, “we have two values, Ethics and Respect, and one principle, Do the Right Thing! When an employee asks me ‘What should I do?’, I always answer by saying ‘Do the Right Thing!‘”