The first provisional results drawn up by Assopopolari for 2017 indicate a growth in loans for cooperative banks aimed mainly at its reference customers, small and medium-sized enterprises and households. Particularly in the past year new loans for smaller companies amounted to approximately 30 billion euro while new home purchase loans taken out by households reached the figure of 15 billion euro. Also on the bank funding front, the data for institutions in the Category show a significant increase in the main aggregates, with deposits up by 3% and current account ones by 4,5%.
For the Secretary General Giuseppe DeLucia Lumeno “these initial calculations once again confirm the commitment of the member banks in favor of the territories served. A commitment that proves to be based, as can be seen from the data, on an increasingly close bond with its customers and a territorial vocation built through increasingly active participation in the promotion of the local economy and the growth of the whole community in the as a whole".
"In a phase in which the Italian economy is showing important signs of recovery - continued De Lucia Lumeno - it is important to remember that in a production structure such as the Italian one which represents the second largest manufacturing in Europe and which is characterized by a capillary and widespread presence of small and medium enterprises, the local banks, and among these the Popular Banks, they still represent one of the most important resources at the service of the country's growth and an essential tool to allow our entrepreneurial and production system to meet the challenges deriving from an increasingly competitive and international market with which our companies are necessarily called to deal in a more competitive way”.
