AXA and Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (BMPS) have extended their bancassurance agreement in Italy to the 1,000 branches of former Banca Antonveneta and AXA will pay Eur240m to BMPS for the transaction, which will be funded internally.
The companies have entered into a strategic partnership in 2007, creating a bancassurance provider for life, non life and pension products in Italy. BMPS then acquired Antonveneta.
Following the termination of the bancassurance agreement between Antonveneta and its historical partner in June 2009, AXA and BMPS benefit from Antonveneta’s distribution capacity for their AXA MPS joint venture.
The AXA MPS insurance joint-venture extends its current network from 2,000 to 3,000 branches in total, reaching an additional 1.6 million potential clients.
AXA Group has operations in Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific area. The Montepaschi Group is present in Italy and in the international financial centers, with operations from traditional banking activities to private banking and corporate banking.