Banca di Credito Sardo

The Banca di Credito Sardo was an Italian bank headquartered in Cagliari, Sardinia. In 2014, it was absorbed into their parent company Intesa Sanpaolo. The head office building, located in Cagliari, was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano.

History

The bank was founded as Credito Industriale Sardo, ente di diritto pubblico con personalità giuridica propria in 1953 as one of the 19 Mediocredito of Italy, as well as one of the three Istituti per il Finanziamento a Medio Terminealle Medie e Piccole Industrie nell'Italia Meridionale e Insulare, which were funded by Cassa per il Mezzogiorno. The bank provided medium term loans to small and medium industries from the island.
Due to 1990s Italian law to restructure credit institutions, known as, the bank became a limited company in 1992. The bank renamed into Banca CIS in the 1990s but remained a regional bank focussed on Sardinia. In 2000 Mediocredito Lombardo, a subsidiary of Banca Intesa, acquired an additional 53.23% stake of Banca CIS from the, making Mediocredito Lombardo owned 55.37% stake. This led to an end of partial state ownership of the bank which the Treasury Ministry had held since 1971.
In February 2009, the 93 branches of Intesa Sanpaolo and Banca CIS were merged to form Banca di Credito Sardo. The merger was formally announced and published within the Italian Gazzetta Ufficiale. At the same time the core business was transferred to Mediocredito Italiano. However, Banca di Credito Sardo was absorbed into Intesa Sanpaolo in 2014.