To cope with the difficulties induced by the crisis, Italian families choose prudence and reorganize their financial relations by favoring accounts, deposits and bonds. This is the photograph taken by the Abi at the annual meeting dedicated to the bank-customer relationship, scheduled today and tomorrow in Rome.
Beyond the phenomena of flows abroad or towards safe-haven assets, there is a widespread shift in savers' choices towards more liquid instruments: from the end of 2010 to the end of 2011, natural persons holding at least one financial instrument decreased and , among these investors, the diversification of the average portfolio has decreased, which today is around 2 types of financial instruments each. The tendency is to invest in products that are not particularly complex and in forms of investment that can be easily liquidated if necessary. In particular, customer interest is increasingly concentrated on company deposits and securities, particularly of a banking nature.
In an unfavorable economic moment such as the current one which generates uncertainty about future prospects, people are even more afraid of getting into debt, especially in terms of mortgages and consumer credit. “Households are moving towards a change in savings management criteria. This is accompanied by a remodulation of the offer on the side of the banks”, notes the president of the Banking Association, Giuseppe Mussari.
In the face of the progressive drop in incomes and the consequent deterioration of citizens' spending power, according to the Abi, solutions are needed to support the purchasing power of families, especially the weakest ones.
