Hotels such as Cassa, Setai Fifth Avenue and Andaz opened recently in the area.

WSJ: Fifth Avenue's New Anchor

With 55 branches scattered around Italy's north-eastern corner, the Cassa di Risparmio hardly looks like an international player.

ECONOMIST: Borderline banking

Some early infrastructure projects by the Cassa per il Mezzogiorno, which brought electricity, drainage and metalled roads, did help.

ECONOMIST: Italy��s economy

It may well be that Italy's most successful international bank these days is an obscure savings institution, the Cassa di Risparmio di Trieste.

ECONOMIST: Borderline banking

Until recently, San Benedetto benefited from the Cassa del Mezzogiorno, a special fund that paid for vast and often ill-conceived projects all over Italy's poor south.

ECONOMIST: Italy

The Cassa's Croatian venture is already breaking even, and received an unusual seal of approval on March 20th, when the World Bank's International Finance Corporation took a 14% stake.

ECONOMIST: Borderline banking

The Cassa di Risparmio kept its cross-border contacts during the cold war, says Roberto Verginella, the bank's chairman, and it was encouraged by the Croatian central bank to open the Zagreb subsidiary.

ECONOMIST: Borderline banking

But since September 1996, when it opened Trscanska Stedionica Banka in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, the Cassa has lived well from the business of Italian manufacturers who have set up shop in Croatia, where labour costs are considerably lower than at home.

ECONOMIST: Borderline banking