4354. There are many complaints received by Consob during 2016, with an increase on an annual basis of 147%. The data relating to the banks is even more eloquent: 3051 appeals, 298% more. The data offers an immediate picture of thehorrible year of Italian savings, as emerged from the annual report illustrated yesterday by the president Giuseppe Vegas. But the president of Consob is not the type to be discouraged. In the face of the unknown, he closes his presentation, it is necessary "to apply the principle of the philosopher of Koenigsberg: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me". AND it really takes Kant's ethics not to get discouraged in the face of these and other difficulties that marked the Italian financial center in 2016, a year marked by a sort of return to the mattress, a symbol of fear and insecurity for the treasure chest of families to read certain data.
In particular, "The Stock Exchange has lost centrality" said the head of the Commission. Apart from funds, "Italians increasingly tend to allocate their savings to bank or post office current accounts". It is a sign of anxiety about the future: "between 2007 and 2016 the incidence of bank and postal deposits on total financial assets went from 38,1% to 46,8%, while the wealth held in shares and securities of public debt went from 10,5% to 5,3% and from 13,4% to 10,8% respectively”. Not only. "There has been a progressive extension of risk areas, starting from government securities and bank bonds, up to the same deposits which today, in the light of the bail-in, must be valued in the same way as any form of investment'.
Its the bail-in policy, decided among other things at a table "to which Consob was not called" is one of the main causes of the "regulatory shock" distinguished by strongly distorting elements, starting from the decision to adopt the new rules with retroactive effect, a choice that conflicts with the basic principles of the law "and which must be corrected as soon as possible". Vegas itself proposes to reinstate the involvement of bondholders, today without a network: for example, a safeguard threshold of 100.000 euros could be introduced, similar to that envisaged for current account holders. The result? "The first and provisional assessment cannot be said to be positive: the same rules that Europe has given itself to ensure stability have proved to be a factor of instability".
But Vegas' report doesn't just look over his shoulder or just lament the mistakes of others. Or, even less, to unload the blame on Europe. Far from it. Vegas wanted to include in this year's report a reminder of the need to defend the euro and the community of 28: woe to evoke, as Lega Nord and Cinque Stelle do, the scenario of the Italian exit from the euro area. This would jeopardize, underlined the president, "the stability, proper functioning of the financial system and the safeguarding of the market, objectives which are part of Consob's institutional mission". "The mere announcement of a return to a national currency would cause an immediate capital outflow that would seriously jeopardize Italy's ability to refinance the world's third-highest public debt."
On the contrary, Italy must be ready to take advantage of the opportunities of Brexit. “Milan must set itself the goal of welcoming British companies – but not only these – who are considering leaving London. The link between Piazza Affari and the London Stock Exchange, after the failure of the marriage between Frankfurt and London, can represent a precious asset, thanks to the complementarity of the two markets: “Milan can in fact aspire to become one of the main reference centers in Europe for asset management”. To win the challenge, however, "concrete steps" are needed. Some have already been implemented, see the flat tax for high-income foreign citizens. However, it is urgent to suspend the Tobin tax introduced by the Monti government to please Angela Merkel (who has been careful not to take a similar initiative). And "carefully consider" some measures taken with the corrective maneuver, see the split payment mechanism.
In short, to reap the benefits of the European Union more presence and personality are needed, those that Italy did not demonstrate when the bail-in was launched, experienced with great failure only in our parts, or when we burdened the Italian stock exchange with burdens fiscal and administrative burdens of the “cousin” markets. In reverse, there are margins for a recovery, provided that the right and courageous initiatives are taken in time: a market for the regulation of non-performing loans, to prevent the problem from turning into just an opportunity for international speculation to make money. But also a "secular" and open approach to innovation for Fintech, to avoid a new, dramatic emigration of financial flows across borders. Also in this case "every delay involves a loss of competitiveness".
