There is never any peace for the troubled banks of the Veneto. Surprisingly, according to what was reported today by the weekly "Milano Finanza", the European Union's Competition DG has asked the Treasury for urgent clarifications on the repayments envisaged by the two banks to shareholders for past losses on shares. The EU fears that the transaction, which was successfully closed in recent days and which could remove a dangerous dispute over the future of the two banks, could be in conflict with the public guarantee of the bonds and, in perspective, with the intervention of the State in the capital, on which depends – together with the merger – the rescue of Banca Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca.
The Treasury will have to provide clarifications by Monday 3 April but it is strange that the EU is waking up now, despite the reimbursement operation having been known for months and will have to be certified by the two boards next week.
The two banks, on the other hand, show more confidence on the relationship with the ECB which on Thursday launched signals of openness on the merger and which will soon have to say whether or not it considers Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca solvent, a decisive pass to be able to start the capital increase from 5 billion with the intervention of the Treasury and then the merger. But time is running out and rescue hangs in the balance. Both because the accounts of the two banks are disastrous, and because capital and savers flee fearing the bail-in and, finally, because liquidity is reduced to a flicker and risks, in a short time, not even being enough to pay the salaries of the employees of the two institutes.
Just yesterday, the board of directors of Veneto Banca acknowledged that the losses for 2016 are around one billion and 400 million, a little less than those of Popolare di Vicenza, which last year lost 1,9 billion euros. In short, it rains in the wet and for the Venetian banks the road remains uphill.
