The whole episode is a perfect taste of the Machiavellian aspect of Italy’s personality that sometimes seems to have kept the country in the dark ages. It has even been suggested by some analysts that Arpe might combat Geronzi by enticing UniCredit to move on Capitalia, the logic being that Arpe and Profumo share similarly open, results-driven philosophies of market forces and banking – the view of the new guard.

Profumo has wisely stayed out of it – although no one is saying that he won’t fight hard to secure control of Italy’s national airline, Alitalia, via investment banking wing UniCredit Banca Mobiliare, his close ties with Romani Prodi and his enormous credibility as a man who can achieve results at an airline more accustomed to stratospheric losses and government subsidy.

It takes a German perspective to bring out the Italian in Profumo, and he admits that there is an essential difference of culture between consensus-driven HVB and the more dictatorial Italian approach. “Had I tried to become a diplomat,” he says, “I would not have made a good career!”

Profumo balances this, however, by saying that anyone who can drive forward a cross-regional enterprise in Italy can handle globalisation. “The cultural difference between Verona and Bologna is far greater than the difference between Milan and London,” he argues with a smile. “In this regard, it is a great advantage to be Italian.” He adds that the UniCredit culture is very entrepreneurial and is in need of some German process, while the process-driven HVB culture could use a little more entrepreneurship.

“Ideally we bring these two entities together to benefit from each other,” Profumo says, adding that while “experience has shown me to be more diplomatic in some instances, when a decision is made it should result in action: lots of talking is needed before the decision can be made, but once it is made the result has to be action. I like to act…”

Profumo’s outlook, then, is the opposite of Romano Prodi’s recently dissolved “Rainbow coalition” of nine different political parties and Italian politics in general, and a reminder of why it is sometimes better to be in business than in parliament.

Asked what his legacy should ideally be, Profumo cites the central innovation of UniCredit: that it has organised the entire bank around the customer. UniCredit Banca serves families and small businesses, UniCredit Banca d’Impresa caters to the mid-sized to large corporate segment, and UniCredit Private Banking deals with high-net-worth individuals.

Profumo then returns to the theme of Europe, citing UniCredit’s 120,000 corporate customers who trade across more than one border. “Being European is important for our customers; nationalism is a mistake for the countries that indulge in it, as well as for Europe as a whole,” he says.

Referring no doubt partly to disgraced Italian central bank governor Antonio Fazio’s attempt to block ABN AMRO’s takeover of an Italian bank last year, but also to a wider situation that has seen French and Spanish governments scrambling to oppose foreign takeovers of formerly state-owned utilities, Profumo says that such behaviour is “not only embarrassing but incredible”.

Looking ahead, Profumo has already announced that there will be no surprises in UniCredit’s full-year results; this partly reflects the return to relative health of the German economy, and the rapid growth of the eastern European economies that Profumo regards as “key to the company’s future success”.

Profumo has done what many would have considered impossible – he has built a team that grew a small Italian bank with a market cap of €1.5bn into a global giant with a market cap of €75bn, the eurozone’s fourth-largest player after Banco Santander, ING Group and BNP Paribas, or what Profumo modestly calls “really a European player”. Perhaps ten years from now he will have built a global champion, proving that Europe can only come into its own as a single market if it plays the game of globalisation.