La Bank of Italy Archive the 2017 budget with a record net income of 3,9 billion. The result allows the central institution to spin to the State a dividend of 3,36 billion. Ai Private participants (banks, insurance companies and privatized social security funds) will go instead 218 million. “It is the highest result ever achieved by the Institute – Governor Ignazio Visco explained in his report. “Its main determinant – he continued – is the increase in the securities portfolio generated by the expansive monetary policy approved by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB)”.
During the meeting of participants, electronic voting will be used. It is the first in the history of the institute. As per tradition, the director general of the Treasury is not present at the meeting, but a representative of him.
Visco explained that the Bank of Italy will also pay the State accrued taxes, equal to 1,56 billion. As a result, the total sums allocated to the State amount to 4,9 billion, a figure approximately 1,5 billion higher than last year.
Also the coupon paid to the Participants it would be higher, equal to 340 million but four participants, including Intesa San Paolo and Unicredit, still have stakes exceeding 3% of the capital and therefore a good 122 million in dividends are sterilized and forfeited among the via Nazionale reserves.
Il balance sheet of the Bank of Italy – continued Visco – it has tripled in the last ten years also for the asset purchase programs that have expanded the size of the balance sheets of all the central banks of the eurozone. For the Bank of Italy, securities associated with monetary policy operations, absent at the beginning of the decade, now make up 40% of the bank's balance sheet.
“The monetary policy measures of an extraordinary nature – said the head of Palazzo Koch – led to a substantial increase in the Bank's income, despite the low interest rates. The interest margin has almost doubled compared to 2008, nearly 8 billion”.
The Governor then stressed that the expansion of the number of Participants to the capital of the Bank of Italy "is to be welcomed: it responds to the intentions of the law which prefigures a broad distribution of shareholdings and places limits on the prerogatives of shareholders".
Visco recalled that "according to the regulations, participants and the Board of Governors cannot intervene in the exercise of the bank's institutional functions".
The Participants in the capital of via Nazionale are 124 and of these 85 are new compared to four years agowhen it came into force the reform with the revaluation of the Bank's capital.
Participants also include 20 banking foundations and 8 pension funds, as well as 9 pension funds, 6 insurance companies and 42 banks.
Read the complete text of Visco's speech.
