Melania D'angelo (pictured), head of BG Certificate Hub, Banca Generali, is the recipient of this year’s SRP Europe Personality of the Year award, after securing the most votes from market participants in the SRP Europe 2021 survey.
D’angelo started her career in structured products at Credit Agricole CIB in 2004 before moving to Exane, where she was tasked with developing the structured products market in the Ticino region of Switzerland. After that, she became the head of sales cross asset solutions for Italy at the French group.
D’angelo has been responsible for the BG Certificate Hub at Banca Generali since 2019.
“I was hired by Banca Generali to expand their activity in the structured products business,” D’angelo said. “In these two years, we have developed a division within Banca Generali that is fully devoted to supporting our network of private bankers in their activity with investment certificates, from placement in the primary market to all the operating activities in the secondary market.”
Throughout my career I have tried to take advantage of technology to improve the results obtained and simplify the work
For now, the focus at Banca Generali is primarily on investment certificates, of which the bank currently has 165 products worth an estimated €800m live, according to the SRP Italy database. The structures are predominately linked to shares – either in a basket or as a single underlying – of which those of Intesa Sanpaolo, ENI, and Unicredit are the most frequently used.
“We offer placements in the primary market to our network of private bankers, both via public offers and via tailor-made private placements,” said D’angelo, adding that Generali also offers a variety of supporting activities and services in the secondary market.
“[In the secondary market], we offer certificates portfolio analysis and performance optimisation, we launch trade ideas, and we propose for clients to switch to more efficient products,” she said.
According to D’angelo, the most important event in the Italian structured products market has been the large-scale distribution of investment certificates with a monthly coupon, a structure that to this day is still one of the favourites of the Italian investor.
“Not only did I witness that, but I was also part of it as a major promotor,” she said.
When D’angelo arrived at Banca Generali she sensed there were huge opportunities for growth as the number of certificates launched by the bank was very small compared to other private banks in Italy.
“Private bankers were only allowed to request certificates via private placements, with no further support, help or information provided,” she said.
Generali then set up its strategy focusing on education and support to broaden the knowledge of its bankers and help them to become familiar with such certificates.
“Now that this goal has been achieved, we are moving on to other projects beyond the pure activity of placements in the primary market and expanding the range of products that we work with. However, the opportunities related to the educational and informational part of the business are still big, especially in the long term,” D’angelo said.
To distinguish itself from its competitors, Generali set up an open platform with many Italian and international issuers. The bank’s certificates are issued, among others, on the paper of Banca IMI, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, Société Générale and Unicredit.
“We pay a lot of attention to product innovation and to tailor-made solutions to answer our clients’ needs, and we design our offer to benefit the most from the prevailing market conditions. Our division provides a lot of post-placement support to our network of private bankers,” D’angelo said.
D’angelo sees the shift towards digitalisation as an opportunity rather than a threat.
“Throughout my career I have tried to take advantage of technology to improve the results obtained and simplify the work for our bankers and clients,” she told SRP.
“We started to build BG Certificates Hub by trying to digitalise both processes and all the information related to products placed in our network. We launched BG Certificate Dashboard, a platform available to our bankers where they can find information about coupons, autocall events, and extraordinary events while starting from this month, we are giving all our bankers a tool they can use to price the most popular product structures themselves.”
Generali does not target any investor in particular, but instead tries to offer tailor-made solutions that best fit the risk/reward preferences of all its clients.
“This is made possible by constantly keeping in touch with our private bankers and clients, by listening to their ideas and needs, and by trying to translate their requests in products that are the most efficient,” D’angelo concluded.
The virtual SRP Europe Conference will take place from 1-4 March 2021. The SRP Europe awards, which recognises and celebrates the best-in-class across the European industry, will be presented on the evening of 3 March. Click here to register.