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TIMELINE
1906: Stake in Banco Commerciale Italo Brasiliano acquired by Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI).
1910: Banque Française & Italienne pour l'Amérique du Sud (Sudameris) founded.
1911: Sudameris branches opened in São Paulo, Rio de Janiero, Santos and Curitiba.
1949: Banco Francês e Italiano para a América do Sul S.A. (later Banco Sudameris Brasil S.A.), a Sudameris subsidiary, founded.
1951: Banco di Napoli (BN) representative office opened in São Paulo.
1972: BCI representative office opened in São Paulo.
1974: BCI representative office in São Paulo transformed into a branch.
1974: Banco Ambrosiano representative office opened in São Paulo through the Inter-Alpha Group.
1982: BCI representative office opened in Rio de Janeiro.
1991: Istituto Bancario San Paolo (IBSP) representative office opened in São Paulo.
In 1906 Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI) acquired a controlling stake in Banco Commerciale Italo-Brasiliano - founded six years earlier by Giuseppe Puglisi, an Italian emigrant - in São Paulo, one of the top destinations for Italian emigrants. This led to the 1910 founding of Banque Française & Italienne pour l'Amérique du Sud (Sudameris), with headquarters in Paris. Initially the bank had four branches in Brazil (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santos and Curitiba), an array of city agencies and a capital of 25 million French francs, half of which was provided by BCI and the other half by Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Paribas).
In little time Sudameris established a dense network of branches throughout South America, the majority of which were in Brazil: by 1939 it had already opened further branches in Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Bahia, Curitiba, Porto Alegre and Recife, as well as 19 agencies in smaller areas.
When the Allies blacklisted Sudameris as an enemy bank during World War II, they created enormous difficulties for its Brazilian operations. In August 1942 the bank was liquidated together with other German banks. In 1949, atop the ashes of Sudameris' former branch in São Paulo, Banco Francês e Italiano para a América do Sul S.A., a Sudameris subsidiary, was created by combining several local banks. The new bank became involved with Brazil's emerging industrial hubs and by the end of the 1960s had established a network of 58 branches. Renamed Banco Sudameris Brasil S.A. in 1980, the bank was sold to the ABN Ambro Group by Banca Intesa in 2003.
In 1950, Banco di Napoli, which had held a monopoly in Brazil over emigrant remittances to Italy for decades, opened a representative office in São Paulo.
In 1956 IMI and Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento Economico, a financial body of the Brazilian government, made an agreement to refinance deferred payments for credits to Italian exporters owed by Brazilian importers, pursuant to earlier agreements between the two countries vis-à-vis the export of Italian goods and services to Brazil based on deferred payment terms. Financial cooperation agreements were also subsequently made with Banco do Brasil.
In 1972 BCI opened a representative office in São Paulo; it was transformed into a branch in 1974. In 1982 BCI opened a Rio de Janeiro branch.
In 1974 Banco Ambrosiano opened a representative office in São Paulo throught Inter-Alpha Group.
In 1991 Istituto Bancario San Paolo opened its own representative office in São Paulo. It was responsible not only for Brazil, but also for other emerging South American economies including Argentina's and Chile's.
In 2015 the Intesa Sanpaolo Group began operating in Brazil through its subsidiary Intesa Sanpaolo Brasil S.A., by then the only operative presence of an Italian credit institution left in Brazil.
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