Costs, licensing, consumer protection Privacy, self-custody, censorship resistance

Intesa Sanpaolo — XME Conto XME Conto (base)

A plan by Intesa Sanpaolo — XME Conto · Mastercard/Visa (+ BANCOMAT)

3.8/5 1.2/5
Account fee €9

Data verified on unchanged since the sources

Worth it if you are under 35 (to 40 with the national youth card): fee and stamp duty waived plus free worldwide withdrawals, with FITD €100,000 protection.

Avoid it if you are over 35 without salary crediting: the full fee is €8.50/month plus stamp duty, and the account pays no interest.

XME Conto is the main retail current account of Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy's largest bank by assets and customers. Online and instant SEPA transfers at zero cost, free ATM withdrawals (Group and other SEPA-area banks) and an included Mastercard/Visa debit card. The base fee is €8.50/month, but it is waived for under-35s (extendable to 40 with the national youth card) and reduced with salary crediting.

XME Conto (base)

Price
€9

What's included

  • Unlimited operations
  • Free XME debit card (Mastercard/Visa)
  • SEPA and instant transfers €0
  • ATM withdrawals Group and SEPA-area €0
  • −€3 with salary crediting · +€34.20 stamp duty/year
€9
Account fee
EU guarantee €100,000
Deposit guarantee
Free
ATM withdrawal
Mastercard/Visa (+ BANCOMAT)
Network
52
Transparency: Low
52/100 · see methodology
52
Data exposure: Low
52/100 · lower is better for sovereignty · methodology

Data & conditions

Account fee €9
IBAN dedicato · IT · IT
Deposit guarantee EU guarantee €100,000
Multi-currency No (single currency)
Outbound transfers to third-party IBANs Yes
Utility direct billing Yes
SEPA direct debit (SDD) Yes
On-chain crypto withdrawal No
SEPA transfer Free
Card included XME Debit Card (Mastercard/Visa + BANCOMAT) inclusa, canone €0
Interest on balance 0%
Network Mastercard/Visa (+ BANCOMAT)
ATM withdrawal Free
Free ATM limit ATM withdrawals at Intesa Sanpaolo Group and other SEPA-area banks free
Fund custody Custodial (platform holds funds)
KYC Full
Supported countries EEA · 1+ countries
Regulator Banca d'Italia · BCE (MVU)
Segment B2C
Funding / solidityItaly's largest bank by assets · ~13-14M retail customers in Italy · listed (ISP)
MiCA / License status Licenza bancaria (Albo Banche n. 5361) IT banking licence (Bank of Italy · ECB-SSM)

Strengths

  • Online and instant SEPA transfers at €0, ATM withdrawals (Group and other SEPA-area banks) at €0, SDD direct debits at €0
  • Free XME debit card (Mastercard/Visa + BANCOMAT) included
  • Fee waived for under-35s (to 40 with the national youth card) and reduced by €3 with salary crediting
  • Supervised bank with FITD deposit guarantee up to €100,000 and a dense branch network
  • No notable sovereignty advantage documented.

Weaknesses

  • Relatively high full base fee (€8.50/month = €102/year) without discount requirements
  • 0% credit rate: non-interest-bearing account, single-currency (EUR only)
  • After turning 35 the youth benefit lapses (automatic switch to Silver €5.90/month)
  • Custodial: the platform holds your funds and can freeze or lose them.
  • Full KYC required: verified identity, zero pseudonymity.
  • Subject to regulation (IT banking licence (Bank of Italy · ECB-SSM)): reporting to authorities and freezes on order.
  • FATF-aligned jurisdiction: strong cooperation with authorities.
  • Closed source: no way to verify what it does with wallet and data.

Verdict

B D ★ 3.8/5 ★ 1.2/5

XME Conto earns a good protection score: a bank supervised by the Bank of Italy (and the ECB, as a significant bank), FITD €100,000 deposit guarantee, SEPA/instant transfers, ATM withdrawals and SDD direct debits all at €0, and a free Mastercard/Visa debit card. The limit is cost for the average user — €8.50/month base fee plus stamp duty — fully convenient only for under-35s or with salary crediting. Non-interest-bearing, single-currency account.

Supervised bank account: custodial, full KYC, censorable and freezable by court order or AML obligation. The FITD deposit guarantee and Bank of Italy supervision — strengths for protection — are exactly what distance it from the trustless model. No self-custody, no permissionless use: on the sovereignty lens it sits at the opposite pole from a self-custody wallet.

Privacy & anonymity 30% 1.1
Fund control 20% 1.4
Censorship resistance 20% 1.4
Trustless / auditability 20% 0.0
Costs 10% 3.6

Promp's editorial rating based on real fees and net annual cost. Promp reviews third-party products independently.

"Sovereignty" rating: score computed on privacy/anonymity (30%), fund control (20%), censorship resistance (20%), trustless/auditability (20%) and costs (10%). Same data, different weights.

Reputation

What happened to people who used Intesa Sanpaolo — XME Conto, and what users say. External signals: they do not feed the promp.it rating.

Incidents & regulatory actions

Notable incidents

Documented events with consequences still open. Each entry carries a source and a date.

  1. Data breach Severe ● open

    A bank employee accessed the banking data of 3,573 customers without cause for over two years: the Italian data protection authority issued a EUR 31.8 million fine (decision no. 208 of 26 March 2026), whose enforceability was later suspended on an interim basis by the Court of Turin

    Between 21 February 2022 and 24 April 2024 an employee at one of the bank's branches consulted the banking information of 3,573 customers with no professional reason, in more than 6,600 separate accesses; politically exposed persons were among the profiles consulted. For over two years the bank's internal controls flagged nothing. The Italian data protection authority (Garante) found the technical and organisational measures inadequate overall — an operating model that let staff query the entire customer base with no restriction and no reinforced controls on the most exposed profiles — and also faulted the incomplete and late breach notification and the notice to affected customers, which came only after the authority's order of 5 November 2024. By decision no. 208 of 26 March 2026 the Garante imposed an administrative fine of EUR 31.8 million, among the largest ever issued in Italy and the largest in the banking sector. The bank challenged it: on 13 July 2026 the Court of Turin suspended the decision's enforceability on an interim basis, and the Garante accordingly removed the document from its website for the time being; the opposition proceedings are pending. The distinction matters: the fine is not final, the data breach is — the authority itself established it back in November 2024, when it ordered the bank to inform the customers involved.

    ↗ source
  2. Regulatory action Severe ● open

    The data of some 2.4 million customers was profiled without an adequate legal basis to pick who would be moved to subsidiary Isybank: a EUR 17.6 million fine from the Italian data protection authority (decision no. 163 of 12 March 2026), now under a pending court challenge

    Between 2023 and 2024 Intesa Sanpaolo selected which customers to move to its wholly owned subsidiary Isybank by combining preset criteria: age no higher than 65, regular use of digital channels over the past year, no investment products and financial resources below a given threshold. The Italian data protection authority (Garante) established that this profiling was carried out without an adequate legal basis and that customers could not reasonably have expected it: the notices were mostly filed in the archive section of the Intesa Sanpaolo app, in the middle of the summer holidays, with no prominent alert (push notification or SMS) signalling what was at stake. The move meant a unilateral change of contract: a new IBAN and digital-only banking, with no branch access. The proceeding began with numerous complaints from account holders. By decision no. 163 of 12 March 2026 the Garante fined Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. EUR 17,628,000. Isybank S.p.A., the subsidiary that received the accounts, was not separately sanctioned. The decision has been temporarily removed from the authority's website under art. 5 of legislative decree 150/2011 because the challenge against it is pending before the courts. The distinction matters: the fine is not final, but the unlawfulness of the processing was established by the authority.

    ↗ source

verified on

Public reviews

4.5/5 1,790,333 reviews
  • Google Play ↗ 4.5/5 1,020,949 reviews

    Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile app on Google Play (com.latuabancaperandroid), IT storefront; exact count and rating from JSON-LD (4.4749). Rates home banking, not XME Conto alone.

  • App Store ↗ 4.6/5 769,384 reviews

    'Intesa Sanpaolo Mobile' app (Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A.), IT store; rates the whole group home-banking service, not XME Conto alone. Exact mean 4.61489 from the iTunes lookup.

Weighted average across 2 public review platforms (1,790,333 reviews in total), weighted by volume. This is not our rating: it is those platforms’ average.

FAQ

How much is the XME Conto fee?

The base fee is €8.50/month (€102/year) plus €34.20 stamp duty. It is waived for under-35s (extendable to 40 with the national youth card) and reduced by €3 with salary or pension crediting.

Are transfers and withdrawals free?

Yes: online and instant SEPA transfers are €0, as are ATM withdrawals at Intesa Sanpaolo Group and other SEPA-area banks and SDD direct debits.

Are deposits guaranteed?

Yes, by the Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD) up to €100,000 per depositor.

Sources

Update history

✓ Terms unchanged since Jul 12, 2026

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