OREANDA-NEWS. April 17, 2008. UniCredit is the first Italian bank which got permission from Italy Bank for usage the brand new Basel 2 method of credits, operation risks and details in capital evaluation, reported the press-centre of Ukrsotsbank.

Bank of Italy has given its authorisation in the past days and has agreed it with the German and Austrian supervisory regulators.  This is an important arrival point of a long trip in which UniCredit has gradually improved its risks management system.

The advanced methodologies are going to be adopted at the beginning by the Holding Company and by its Italian subsidiaries (with exclusion of the former Capitalia Group) from HVB and BA-CA and will then be extended to the other Group companies.

The authorization to apply these new approaches will produce an immediate benefit for the group like UniCredit which is strongly focused on retail and corporate business (80% of the operating profits in 2007 comes from commercial banking activity). Including Capitalia, which will apply in 2008 the Standardized Approach, and despite the additional capital requirement due to operational risk, Group Core Tier 1 Ratio will improve. Additional capital benefits for Core Tier 1 are also expected in 2008 and 2009 through the roll out of rating models to the other entities of the Group (including former Capitalia legal entities) and through the improvement of credit processes and of the efficiency of data collection and management.