The Poste Italiane Group’s profit for 2016 amounts to €622 million, a 12.7% improvement on the figure for 2015, amounting to €552 million. Operating profit of €1,041 million is up 18.3% on the €880 million of 2015. Despite the fact that the Postal and Business Services segment contributed a loss of €436 million, this is an improvement of 23.2% on the operating loss of €568 million for the previous year. This reflects the positive contribution from the fees paid by BancoPosta RFC in return for use of the Group’s distribution network. The Financial Services segment recorded an operating profit of €813 million (€907 million in 2015), after benefitting from non-recurring income generated by the sale of the Group’s investment in Visa Europe Ltd.12, which took place as part of Visa Inc.’s acquisition of this company, and returns on BancoPosta RFC’s investments. In contrast, as described below, the result also reflects other provisions for risks and charges, made to cover the estimated cost of voluntary action taken to protect customers who purchased units issued by the Invest Real Security real estate fund.
The Insurance Services and Asset Management segment reports operating profit of €636 million (up 24.7%) and an excellent operating performance, with €19.9 billion in premium revenue during the period (€18.2 billion in 2015).