Intesa Sanpaolo

Is Intesa Sanpaolo safe?

Yes, for ordinary deposits. Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest bank, had a CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary of 13.1% at 30 June 2026 against a requirement of 9.96%, a liquidity coverage ratioLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary of 138% and almost no bad loans left on its books (0.2% of total loans). It earned €5.6 billion in the first half of 2026. We score it 74/100, a little above UniCredit at 72 and below Santander at 77. The deductions are for ratings held down by Italy's own credit rating and a 2026 privacy fine that exposed weak internal controls.

How Italian deposit protection works at Intesa

Current accounts, savings accounts and certificates of deposit at Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. are covered by the Fondo Interbancario di Tutela dei Depositi (FITD) up to €100,000 per depositor per bank. Repayment is due within seven working days of a liquidation. Joint accounts are split, so each holder's share counts toward their own limit.

Two things catch Intesa customers out. First, the group has more than one bank. Isybank, the digital bank to which Intesa moved about 2.4 million mostly online customers from late 2023, is a separate bank, and the FITD applies its limit per bank. Fideuram, the group's private banking arm, is also separately licensed. Second, much of what Italian branches sell is not a deposit: life policies, funds and the bank's own bonds sit outside the FITD. Intesa had €612 billion of banking deposits in June 2026, but also €187 billion of insurance "deposits" and €885 billion of indirect savings, none of which is covered by the deposit guaranteeDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary.

Capital and the Italian ratings cap

Measure	30 June 2026
CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary	13.1% (13.8% pro forma)
CET1 requirement incl. buffers	9.96%
Leverage ratioLeverage ratioA bank's Tier 1 capital divided by its total exposures, without adjusting for risk. It is a simple backstop to risk-based capital rules.More in the glossary	5.8%
Liquidity coverage ratioLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary	138% (12-month average)
Net stable funding ratioNet stable funding ratioA bank's stable funding, such as capital and retail deposits, compared with the stable funding its assets need over one year. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary	120%
MREL	36% vs 26.1% required

The 13.1% figure is after deducting €5.3 billion set aside for distribution and a €2.3 billion buyback. Intesa says it would be about 13.8% once deferred tax assets are fully absorbed. Either way the buffer is about three points of risk-weighted assets, a little less than UniCredit's.

The ratings tell a more cautious story than the balance sheet. Moody's rates Intesa's senior preferred debt A3, Fitch A- and S&P BBB+ with a positive outlook. Italy itself is rated BBB+ by S&P and Fitch and Baa2 by Moody's, so Intesa sits level with the state at S&P and one notch above it at Moody's and Fitch. Agencies rarely rate an Italian bank far above Italy, because a bank holding large amounts of its home government's bonds shares that government's risk. UniCredit faces the same cap. That ceiling is the main reason we score capital at 72, lower than at Northern European banks with similar ratios.

A funding base that is hard to run on

Liquidity is Intesa's strongest point. Retail customers supply 74% of its direct deposits, and those deposits exceed loans by a wide margin: €612 billion against €437 billion. It held €213 billion of unencumbered liquid assets at the end of June 2026. A depositor run would have to be very large before it touched the bank's ability to pay.

The bid for Monte dei Paschi

On 8 June 2026 Intesa launched a €30.6 billion tender and exchange offer for all of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), which owns Mediobanca. It offers 1.6 new Intesa shares plus €1 in cash for each MPS share, needs 66.67% of MPS to accept (a threshold Intesa may waive), and has a parallel deal to sell about 635 MPS branches, the MPS brand and its head office to Unipol as a separate bank, expected in the second half of 2027. Intesa would keep Mediobanca and about 625 MPS branches. In early October it raised the cash part of the offer, and MPS's largest shareholder, Delfin, undertook to tender shares equal to 17.6% of MPS.

For Intesa savers the question is capital. Intesa says its CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary would stay above 14% by 2029 with the deal. Nothing changes for depositors until the offer closes. If it does, MPS customers would end up either at Intesa or at the bank sold to Unipol, and each is a separate bank with its own €100,000 FITD limit while it stays separate.

The employee who looked at 3,573 accounts

In March 2026 Italy's data protection authority, the Garante, fined Intesa €31.8 million. An employee had looked up the banking information of 3,573 customers, including national politicians and public figures, more than 6,600 times between February 2022 and April 2024. Intesa's systems allowed staff to query almost the whole customer base, and its monitoring did not flag the pattern. The Garante opened its own investigation after press reports in October 2024; the bank's July 2024 notification had described a much smaller breach.

No outsider hacked the bank and no money was stolen, but the case is a fair test of how well a bank watches its own staff, and Intesa did poorly. That is why digital security scores 62.

Fines and conduct

• December 2016: Intesa and its New York branch paid a $235 million penalty to the New York State Department of Financial Services for years of anti-money-launderingAnti-money launderingThe rules and checks that stop criminals from moving illegal money through banks, payment firms and crypto exchanges.More in the glossary failures in transaction monitoring. The regulator also found the bank had deliberately concealed information from examiners.
• November 2023 to June 2024: Italy's competition authority (AGCM) ordered Intesa to stop moving customers to Isybank without explicit consent. It closed the case without a fine after Intesa improved how it informed customers.
• March 2026: the €31.8 million Garante fine described above.

How to keep your money safe at Intesa Sanpaolo

1. Check whether your contract names Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A., Isybank or Fideuram. Each has its own €100,000 limit.
2. Keep deposits within €100,000 per person per bank. Spreading larger sums across unrelated banks costs nothing.
3. Before buying a product in a branch, ask whether it is a deposit. Policies, funds and bank bonds are not covered by the FITD.
4. Approve logins and payments only in the app. Intesa staff will not ask you for a code by phone or text, and "safe account" transfer requests are a common scam.

How we scored it

Liquidity (86), deposit protectionDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary (82) and stability history (82) are Intesa's strongest factors. Capital (72) is solid on the numbers but limited by Italy's ratings. Digital security (62) and conduct (64) are the weakest, both shaped by the 2026 insider breach and the 2016 New York penalty. For another southern European bank with a similar profile, see BBVA.