Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) was founded by Banca Popolare di Cremona, Intra, Lecco, Lodi, Luino e Varese and Verona in 1939.

[8] In November 2010, the ICBPI was condemned by the Antitrust to pay a fine of 490,000 euros for agreements restricting competition in relation to the credit card sector,[9] which was subsequently suspended by the Lazio TAR.

[11] In February 2017, ICPBI acquired the card business of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena for €520 million.

[14] On June 16, 2021, a merger with the Danish company Nets was signed, which resulted in Nexi expanding its range of action at a European level.

[11] After the sales in December 2015, Credito Valtellinese (Creval) retained 1.9989% as the second largest shareholders, followed by Banca Popolare di Sondrio which did not sell (1.9973%).

As BPER Banca (ex-Banca Popolare dell'Emilia Romagna) also acquired Nuova Carife, as well as the disinvestment of by Cassa di Sovvenzioni e Risparmio fra il Personale della Banca d'Italia and BP Bari, making the shareholders base of ICBPI was further reduced to 11 entities (by banking group and excluding treasury shares).