Post office opens up shop

Poste Italiane plans web-based funds supermarket with wide coverage.

Poste Italiane, the post office turned fund distributor, looks set to exploit the Internet age, and a burgeoning marketplace, through a fund supermarket. BancoPosta, the firm’s Rome-based financial division, has already brought in E180m for a range of Schroders funds sold through its branches. It also offers third-party products through equity-linked bonds, which have so far netted E2.3bn. Plans are being laid to launch the Web-based supermarket later this year. Poste Italiane said it would sell funds from as many asset management houses – Italian or non-Italian – as service the market and would cover all the major asset classes. The platform would offer “all the usual tools” to assist customers in their choice – a fund search engine, research, asset allocation tools, and so on. But the funds would also be available, albeit without the online advice, through offices around Italy. Stefano Calderano, director at BancoPosta, says: “People still want to see someone face to face.” Concerns about the safety of carrying out transactions over the Internet were “still a big deal in Italy”, he says. This is backed up by research from Sector Analysis, which compared 17 of the leading fund supermarkets in Europe. It concluded that none is Web-only – all have at least telephone support. Mr Calderano says the Italian market is ripe for a fund supermarket offering. Individuals, who traditionally invested through the local bank, are aware of a world of options, and are keen to choose from the proper range of products.