It was held on July 27th the Monthly Smart Talk organized by the Italian-Cypriot Chamber of Commerce, which saw as guest Marios Loizides, Head Business Development, Global Corporate Banking & Markets Division of Bank of Cyprus, also valued member of the Chamber, which was particularly focused on the Cypriot local economy and banking system.
After the introductory greetings by the President of the Italian-Cypriot Chamber of Commerce Giuseppe Marino, the discussion was moderated by Matteo Boffa, Senior Manager and Head of Private and Wealth Management practice at Join Business Management Consulting, a Strategic Consulting boutique with relevant experience of support of Italian and foreign banks founded about ten years ago by Giovanni Brandani and Leonardo Fenizi as a spin-off of Value Partners and McKinsey.
After giving a general overview of the main areas of interest of Bank of Cyprus, Loizides pointed out that the bank, a dominant player in the domestic market with shares listed in both London Stock Exchange and Cyprus Stock Exchange, has an extensive range of action in several sectors including investment banking, private banking and brokering.
Mr. Loizides gave also an indication of current status and perspectives of the local economy referring to the sectors with the most important growth in the previous year such as Construction, Education, Tourism, Shipping and Financial Services, also mentioning the ones that seems having more potential in the future like Energy and Health, areas both related to the NPRR, in which has been confirmed the interest of the bank to meet with Italian companies to evaluate the support on viable projects.
Furthermore, Loizides stressed out that it has been registered a steady progress since the financial crisis of 2012/2013 and how the well capitalized banks guarantee nowadays a solid system, supported by the banks’ good performances before the pandemic and by the results on the European Central Bank’s 2021 stress tests.
Therefore, Cyprus has introduced new regulatory standards which provide the strictly application of the international OECD guidelines and the trasposition of the EU directives to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.
Finally, Marios Loizides, also Advisory Board Member of the Chamber, mentioned that it is important to keep strengthening the business relations between Italy and Cyprus by promoting business cooperation in all the sectors of interest, and particularly to aware investors of the advantages of doing business on the Italian-Cypriot axis.
The conclusions of the meeting were left to the Vice President of the Italian-Cypriot Chamber of Commerce Costas Katsaros who highlighted how the Smart Talk offered an overview of current financial situation of Cyprus and the relative banking system, specifying the potentiality of growing sectors and opportunities for Italian companies, also underling how Cyprus’s business environment is really interesting not only due to the island’s strategic position, but also for its the economic framework and banking system.
For more information of this article and insights on the activities of the Italian-Cypriot Chamber of Commerce: segreteria@camcomitacipro.it
Last modified: February 1, 2022