TIMELINE
1920: Banca Commerciale Italiana e Romena (Romcomit), a Banca Commerciale Italiana subsidiary, founded in Bucharest.
1948: Romcomit nationalized and liquidated.
2006: Stake in Daewoo Bank (later Banca CR Firenze Romania S.A.) acquired by Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.
2008: Intesa Sanpaolo Bank subsidiary becomes part of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group.

Banca Commerciale Italiana (BCI)'s interest in Eastern Europe dates back to the 1920s, when the most important Italian businesses made an attempt to take economic and commercial advantage of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their aim was to strengthen the development of Italian industry by importing raw materials and creating new business opportunities. One such effort involved BCI's creation in Milan in 1919 of the Società Anonima Foresta, which was founded to hire approximately twenty timber companies, mostly Romanian ones, owned by Budapest's Creditinstitut Ungarischer Holzhaendler A.G. (Holzbank). In 1926, BCI sold all of its assets and liabilities to AG fuer Holzwerte (Zurich), which was then renamed Foresta Romena Holding S.A.
However, BCI's first success in Romania was undoubtedly its 1920 creation of Banca Commerciale Italiana e Romena (Romcomit), a subsidiary that always achieved excellent results for its parent company.
Enrico Marchesano, Romcomit's director as of 1925, was in direct contact with the Romanian government during the complex international negotiations regarding the issue of the country's monetary stabilization, and granted a loan of 12 million dollars that BCI provided directly to Romania in October 1928, in advance of the international loan that was made several months later.
Thanks to its high liquidity, during the war Romcomit was able to finance the Italo-Romanian "clearing" in 1941 as well as an Italian expeditionary force that took part in the Russian campaign for winter purchases, before the Italian government's own loan arrived.
The measures taken to nationalize the country's banks and the implementation of the Treaty of Peace with Romania following the war led to the closure and liquidation of the network of Balcan-area subsidiaries, including Romcomit, in 1948.
In 2006 Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze became a controlling shareholder in Daewoo Bank (Romania) S.A., later named Banca CR Firenze Romania S.A., in order to make a rapid entry into a banking market that was in the process of being restructured and streamlined, and to provide support to Italian companies with a presence in the region.
Intesa Sanpaolo began operating in Romania in 2008 through Commercial Bank Intesa Sanpaolo Romania S.A. (Intesa Sanpaolo Bank). This bank had been founded in 1996 in Arad, in the western part of Romania, as a financial institution specialized in products and services for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Following the global merger between the Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI Groups, the bank moved into a new phase of development as Romania became both a strategic market and a priority for the rapid expansion of the new Intesa Sanpaolo Group.
In 2012 Commercial Bank Intesa Sanpaolo Romania SA and CR Firenze Romania SA Bank merged to become a single financial entity: Intesa Sanpaolo Bank.

ASI-BCI, Foresta
ASI-BCI, Financial Office, Subsidiaries, cartt. 19-21