Società per azioni is a form of corporation in Italy, literally "company limited by shares" (although often translation as , which may or may not be limited liability). it was equivalent to S.A. or public limited company in other countries. However, local variance still existed.
The other common form of corporation in Italy was società a responsabilità limitata (literally limited company). S.p.A. issued shares (Italian: azioni), while in S.r.l. the unit was quote/stock of share capital. Moreover, the articles of association of S.r.l. allowed different allocation of profit and assets, which was compared to limited partnership.
Banks were required to run as S.p.A. if the assets was more than a threshold since 2016. It saw Banco BPM, BPER Banca, UBI Banca, the blue chips of FTSE MIB Index demututalized from S.C.p.A. or S.c. a.r.l. and S.C. (co-operative company by shares, co-operative company with limited liabilities and co-operative company)