Too many banks and too many branches. Italy is the country with the highest concentration of tote bags among Western nations. Precisely for this reason, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan is pushing for mergers, the only way to reverse a trend that has now turned into a real tradition.
As the director of the Luiss School of European political economy, Marcello Messori, argued in the pages of La Stampa, "The Italian banking system, even more than the Spanish one, has continued to increase the number of branches even when the rest of Europe and the America reduced them”.
A reality that, according to experts, represents a real brake on the development and restructuring of the sector.
To date, the top three banks in the country control a quarter of market shares, with a percentage of branches that even exceeds pharmacies, restaurants, and even middle, elementary and high schools. A feature that not only causes an increase in costs, but also causes our institutions to generate returns that are among the lowest in the Eurozone.
The reform of the mutual banks approved last April and above all the reform of the cooperatives launched on 25 March 2015 could finally help reverse the trend.
