MILANO (ITALPRESS) – Intesa Sanpaolo and AICCON have published the XIV edition of the Observatory on Finance and Third Sector. The 2025 survey returns the image of an evolving sector, more aware of its economic and social role, attentive to sustainability and with increasing expectations towards the banking system.
After years of stable trends, some signs of discontinuity emerge: The Bank-Society Report remains overall positive with more than 76% being satisfied, although the percentage is slight decline. To be more satisfied with the relationship with its own credit institutions are above all the realities present in the regions in the South (80%), as well as those with operational seniority over 20 years (79.9%). The most appreciated factor confirms the presence of dedicated and trained staff and increases the demand for specific and customized services.
Organizations invested in the three-year period 2021-2024 account for 52% of the total of 250 respondents (down 15% compared to 2024) and 4 out of 10 expected new investments in 2025. Self-financing increases (48%) and the use of bank credit is reduced (26.2%).
The Observatory’s analysis highlights how banks play a key role in supporting the growth and resilience of the Third Sector. In addition to credit delivery, they can act as real partners by promoting tailor-made impact tools for the different segments of the Third Sector, greater flexibility in credit ratings and simplification of credit access procedures.
Training remains an important lever: almost 40% of the organizations ask for training courses in particular on impact assessment (+30% compared to 2024) and fundraising projects (+4.5%). Another area is the consultancy and accompaniment to corporate welfare services for about 30% of the bodies, since it reaches 40% for newly established realities.
In addition, public-private collaboration is fundamental to strengthen territorial relations and channel resources to emerging social needs. Among the priorities on which the Third Sector calls for collaboration with the banking system emerge the fight against poverty (26.8%), employment (21%) and access to care and assistance services (22.3%).
In this scenario the role of Intesa Sanpaolo is inserted as an institution that wants to make a real contribution to the reduction of social differences. Through a distinctive model with two dedicated and complementary structures, Intesa Sanpaolo for Social and Impact Management, which operates within the Banca dei Territori Division, the Group led by CEO Carlo Messina, strengthens the goal of being a benchmark in social sustainability, promoting inclusion and cohesion within the framework of its overall strategy. A commitment that also translates into telling and enhancing, thanks to the Bank’s instrument of social impact assessment of the initiatives financed, the concrete results and the stories of change generated by the Third Sector.
“The new edition of the Observatory returns a Third Sector that evolves, selects and rethinks its priorities. The challenge for the future is to build a more generative, measurable and impactful finance, able to accompany social enterprises in the digital, environmental and organizational transitions, strengthening the bond between the bank and the community – explains Andrea Lecce, Head of Impact Management of the Banca dei Territori di Intesa Sanpaolo -. Every year, thanks to the commitment of the 600 people of the Impact Direction, we provide approximately 300 million euros of credit, facilitated to more than 100,000 companies in the Third Sector”.
For Paolo Venturi, Director of AICCON Research Center, “the signs, now not weaker, of a discontinuity present in the demand for finance of social enterprises indicate the need for a second time also in the offer of services and financial instruments. The new phase has as its main characteristic to define and propose increasingly pragmatic tools linked to needs and, at the same time, to look no more only to individual organizations, but to the territorial systems that today, more than ever, are fundamental for a new season of investments linked to transitions”.
The Observatory is enriched for the fifth year of the Social Enterprise Intesa Sanpaolo outlook, an analysis curated by Ipsos Italia and AICCON, in collaboration and with the patronage of Confcooperative-Federsolidarity and Legacoopsocial and CGM, aimed at detecting sentiment, health status and future development prospects on a sample of 100 social cooperatives.
Also from this report – which is alongside the Observatory and integrates it – emerges a third sector evolving between consolidation and renewed innovative thrust. It confirms the importance of strengthening the propensity for collaboration and aiming to build a solid ecosystem among the main subjects and operators of the social economy: Third Sector bodies, Public Administrations and Banks/financers. In particular, the role of banking institutions as a sustainable and digital development partner is consolidated: 8 out of 10 enterprises consider their contribution useful or indispensable, in particular through financial instruments of impact and co-investment.
– Press Office photos Intesa Sanpaolo –
(ITALPRESS).
