The financial desertification in the south continues inexorably. The generic proclamations on the need for huge public and private investments for the rebirth of the South, as a driving force for the recovery of the national economy, are followed by concrete behaviors that are diametrically opposed and not at all positive. In Sicily, as at 31 December 2018, the banking system was made up of 59 active banks with 1.273 operating branches, on the same date of the previous year there were 1.411 branches, 1.806 in 2009, ten years earlier. Furthermore, there were 60 active banks in the region in 2017, up from 71 ten years earlier. A quarter of the municipalities, 102, is today without a bank branch. The province of Messina leads the sad ranking with 59 municipalities without counters. These are the official data of the annual report on the credit observatory presented in recent days in Palermo and which signal the difficulties in doing banking in Sicily, conveying a sense of abandonment and uncertainty.
However, the problem is not only of the South, but of the whole country. The map of banks in Italy records, in the last seven years, the disappearance of almost 6.300 branches with a decrease in personnel of over 26.000 units. The rate of reduction in the number of branches fluctuates between -4,6% in the North-West and -9,3% in the Islands. More than a quarter of Italian branches were closed in 2017 alone. These are figures that qualify the situation of the Italian banking system in this phase of economic stagnation. And, as if that weren't enough, the second national banking group announces, in these days, the closure of 500 branches and 8.000 fewer employees over the next three years.
But all of this has its own logic. The transformation of the banking system achieved in recent years makes it clear that the aim pursued has been to seek ever higher levels of efficiency and profitability to give international markets, rating agencies and supervisory authorities tangible and quantifiable signals of a ever greater stability to be obtained through a constant reduction of costs. A very specific policy which, however, has not taken into account the needs of people and small and medium enterprises which, on the contrary, need a visible presence in their territories of banking institutions and which cannot be replaced, suddenly, by the new and more advanced digital tools proposed by FinTech.
In this context, the data, going against the trend, concerning Popular credit take on particular relevance. In October 2019, out of a total of 7.914 Italian Municipalities, those with banks, i.e. served by at least one branch, numbered 5.277, approximately 67 percent of the total and of these 2.479 have a popular bank. There are 2.049 Municipalities with only one bank branch and 663 with only one Popolare bank. Overall, in one municipality out of three, where only one branch is operational, the credit intermediation function is carried out exclusively by a Banca Popolare. It is a significant presence aimed at the daily action of the Popular Credit Banks which in all these local areas represent the only point of reference for small local entrepreneurship and for a large range of families and individuals who, either by age or by level of education, they struggle to access and use FinTech tools or, as they say, “they struggle to be connected”.
It is certainly true that the technological revolution, with the increased use of digital channels, is profoundly changing the banking activity. But is it really true that everything can be resolved by closing doors? Are we really sure that the relationship between bank and customer can be entirely replaced by the use of technology, be it the most advanced possible? The digital revolution is epochal and will produce rapid and profound transformations in the next decade. But for this very reason there will be a need for banks, especially those with a deep-rooted territorial vocation, the only ones capable, by capacity and sensitivity, of effectively deploying technology at the service of people and not vice versa, gradually managing the processes. A need further confirmed by the constant increase in the rate of aging of the population. Thus, while the large credit institutions leave the territories, it is precisely the small and medium-sized banks that have to make up for this lack of supply of services were it not that the spasmodic search for continuous and higher levels of efficiency and capitalization makes everything increasingly difficult, almost impossible.
Therefore, the problem which is clearly evident in Sicily today but which, as we have seen, concerns the entire country, should not be overlooked, as has been done culpably in the past. The drastic and not gradual closure of branches affects local economies, accentuates their progressive abandonment to the detriment of the economic and productive fabric, as well as affects individuals and families. One might say, paraphrasing Humphrey Bogart at the end of the film "The Last Menace", it is "the beauty market, and you can't help it". But no, we do not resign ourselves.
