Early beginnings The institution was initially created under the name
Cassa Piemontese by Act of the Parliament of the
Kingdom of Sardinia No. 1097 of 18 November 1850. Its main purpose was to mobilise capital received by the State through private savings collection channels for public utility works. In 1857, it was reorganised for the first time at the instigation of the first
Cavour government. After the
unification of Italy, in 1863 it began to incorporate similar banks in the other states that gradually merged into the kingdom and followed, with its own headquarters, the relocation of the Italian capital, first to
Florence and then to
Rome. The bank gradually expanded its operations, offering new savings instruments, the proceeds of which were used for the CDP's institutional objectives, such as the construction of the
Rome-Naples direct railway.
Francesco Saverio Nitti founded
Crediop in 1919, in which the CDP held the largest shareholding. Similarly, in 1924 the Cassa participated in the establishment of the ICIPU. In 1924, postal savings bonds (
buoni fruttiferi postali) were issued for the first time, securities with a fixed and guaranteed yield in small denominations so that even minimal investments could be collected; this issue was so successful that the issue of Ordinary Treasury Bonds was temporarily suspended. In the following year, postal savings bonds were also issued in
dollars and
sterling, mainly intended for
emigrants.
Italian Republic, 1946–present Over time, the legal form of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti also changed: it started out as a bank, albeit under the aegis of the State, but was first transformed into a general directorate of the Ministry of the Treasury (1898) and then became fully autonomous with the enactment of Law No 197 of 13 May 1983, after which it was recognised as having its own legal status, distinct from that of the State, with Law No 68 of 19 March 1993. Decree Law No. 269 of 30 September 2003 transformed it into a
joint-stock company by taking over the rights and obligations of the institution; the law also stipulated that a ministerial decree would regulate the functions and activities of the new company. The regulation was then issued by Decree of the
Ministry of Economy and Finance of 5 December 2003. This allowed 65
banking foundations to join the shareholding structure, which were allocated
preferred stocks amounting to 30% of the
share capital. Its sphere of operations encompasses various sectors: from large-scale industry to international cooperation, from the development of
small and medium-sized enterprises to the support of their growth in size and
internationalisation, from the support of
public administration to the management of
real estate, from the regeneration of tangible and intangible infrastructure to the facilitation of energy efficiency and technology transfer. In late 2009, as credit conditions tightened after the
2008 financial crisis, CDP started lending to small and medium enterprises through banks. On 5 December 2018, the 2019-2021 Business Plan was approved with the aim of mobilising resources of €200 billion over three years to support businesses, infrastructure and the region. In 2021, the Patrimonio Rilancio fund was launched at CDP, originally intended to provide some 40 billion euros of financing; by 2023, it had invested just around 1 billion euros. In July 2022, rating agency
Moody's cut the outlook from stable to negative, along with 13 other Italian financial institutions. Since 2023, CDP has increasingly been working on transactions to return to domestic ownership companies that were acquired by foreign investors. In 2023, Italy's government presented plans to set up an investment fund backed by CDP to promote startups investing in
artificial intelligence (AI). ==Assets==