Cooperative banks that focus on lending are more efficient than those that limit lending to 30-40% of assets. This is what emerges from an analysis conducted at European level on a sample of cooperative banks and savings banks (Efficiency in Cooperative Banks and Saving Banks: a stochastic frontier approach; C. Spulbar, M. Nitoi and L. Anghel, 2018). The indication is also confirmed by another study (Cost Efficiency of European Cooperative Banks; M. Kuc, 2019), which demonstrates the greater efficiency of local cooperative banks and how counterproductive a single regulation that does not take into account an adequate level of biodiversity in the banking system is for these institutions.
"An aspect, the latter, which should be taken into account - reads a note from Assopopolari - also in the application of the legislation on capital requirements and on the weighting of assets defined as risky which, up to now, has penalized the institutions most dedicated to a traditional type of credit activity and therefore with customers mainly of small and medium-sized enterprises and households as opposed to the main global players who, over the years, have burdened their balance sheets with derivative and speculative products considered less risky and of which only now European supervision is asking for the bill (above all the Deutsche Bank case)”.
According to the general secretary of the National Association of Popular Banks, Giuseppe De Lucia Lumeno, "those cited are scientific findings that find their raison d'être in a socio-economic fabric where the formula of banking cooperation has managed to make fortunes of the real economy in all countries, from the most advanced to the new emerging economies of Eastern Europe, with a broad response also in our country as a barrier to the desertification of the territories and a stimulus to the recovery of the weaker economies. A path of progress and inclusion, of both economic and cultural growth, to the construction of which the popular credit system is contributing significantly thanks to its roots in and link with the strong reference values based on the solidity and unity of the communities themselves ”.
