Covid has "inflated" the Bank of Italy's balance sheet, which in turn had already been growing for years, ending up in 2020 tripling the 2014 figure (+150%). This was announced by the governor Ignazio Visco, explaining during the annual shareholders' meeting, that the monetary policy interventions implemented by the European institutions “to contain the economic effects of the pandemic have been reflected in the 2020 balance sheet of the Bank of Italy. The scale reached by the activities at the end of 2020 is unprecedented: the balance sheet total was close to 1.300 billion, 336 more than last year”. Only in 2020, therefore, did the balance sheet grow not much less than it did in the previous five years (+429 billion overall): "Since the end of 2014, the balance sheet total has therefore grown by almost 150%, due to the extraordinary increase in long-term refinancing operations by banks and purchases of public securities and private bonds for monetary policy purposes”, added Visco.
Going into more detail, "at the end of 2020 - the governor specified - the budget surplus was 1.296 billion euros. 70% is attributable to monetary policy operations (compared to 40% in 2014): securities reached 539 billion, an increase of 155 billion compared to the previous year; 473 billion are Italian government bonds. Refinancing operations, equal to 374 billion, increased by 154 billion”.
The performance is reflected accordingly on profit and dividend, even if in the last financial year the net profit of the Bank of Italy was 6,3 billion, two less than in 2019. "The institution's profitability - underlined the governor - after five years of uninterrupted growth, decreased compared to 2019, although remaining very high compared to previous years. The effect on revenues of the significant increase in balance sheet volumes was more than offset by that of the reduction in interest rates. The gross result, before taxes and the provision for general risks, remains in any case higher than 10 billion, well above the level of two years ago”. “The future trend of the bank's balance sheet – added Visco – as well as that of profitability, will continue to be influenced by the evolution of monetary policy measures and the general conditions of the economy. For 2020, gross profit, before taxes and the provision for general risks, stood at 10,2 billion, 0,6 less than in 2019".
The Bank of Italy will distribute a dividend of 340 million a sum of 7,315 billion will be allocated to the shareholders and the State, of which 5,9 in profits and 1,4 in taxes. In the last five years, "the cumulative amount paid to the State reaches 25 billion, plus 6,5 billion in taxes". Visco then made some considerations on the economic situation: “The unprecedented global crisis caused by the spread of Covid-19 continues to have a heavy impact on the economy and on the social fabric. The pressure on health systems is still strong. Uncertainty also remains strong on the evolution of the health crisis and, consequently, on the prospects of the economy, but the launch of vaccination campaigns in Italy and in the rest of the world leads to cautious optimism for the future".
