Italy's UniCredit Has Stopped Advertising on Facebook

By Giovanni Legorano and Deepa Seetharaman

Italy's largest bank, UniCredit SpA, stopped advertising on Facebook Inc. in March, due to allegedly unethical behavior by the social-media giant related to a scandal involving data firm Cambridge Analytica.

UniCredit's decision was unveiled Tuesday by the bank's chief executive, Jean-Pierre Mustier, in response to a reporter's question on whether the bank has shared customers' information with Facebook.

The reporter's question was prompted by an article published on Monday by The Wall Street Journal, which detailed how Facebook had asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.

Mr. Mustier said the bank never shares customer information and had stopped using Facebook for its advertising and marketing campaigns. He added that it won't advertise on Facebook again until the U.S. company improves its ethical standards.

"UniCredit has stopped all advertising with Facebook due to recent incidents and the company's reaction to them," Mr. Mustier said. "The Group takes ethics very seriously."

A Facebook spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

A UniCredit spokesman said the bank had decided to stop using Facebook for advertising campaigns at the end of March, following news about the company's connections to Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook faces several investigations over its ties to Cambridge Analytica, which accessed data on as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent.

The Italian bank still maintains several Facebook pages which it regularly uses to interact with its customers.

UniCredit is Italy's largest bank by assets. It has operations in several European countries, including Russia, but only a small presence in the U.S.

Write to Giovanni Legorano at giovanni.legorano@wsj.com and Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 07, 2018 14:33 ET (18:33 GMT)

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