Not all ills come to harm! It seems that once again this ancient brocardo must be right, as can be seen from the awaited epilogue of the age-old story of the Popolare di Bari. The latter has landed in Parliament where (soon) the decree law n. 142 of 2019 - which provided for the financing of MCC aimed at supporting the credit system of the South and the creation of an investment bank - should be converted into law, bringing an unexpected beneficial opening for the cooperative credit sector, significantly tested by the reform disciplinary of 2016.
I am referring, in particular, to the fact that the text of the aforementioned legislative decree no. 142, for the approval of the Chamber, contains some amendments among which, in my opinion, the modifications of the law n. 49 of 2016, which had innovated the discipline of the mutual banks.
The prediction of a possible adhesion to the "Institutional protection systems" of all the members of the category concerned in this regard leads us to believe that the legislator - after years of criticism formulated by the doctrine - has finally given way to an 'active repentance', giving back to the same their specification mission of local banks. Finally they will be able to regain possession of their managerial autonomy and, therefore, escape the bad weather of a hetero-management that is changing their function into that of 'mere dependencies' operating within the group to which, following the enactment of law no. 49, have joined.
In this sense, the "faculty to adopt, as an alternative to the establishment of the cooperative banking group, systems of institutional protection", now permitted to all Italian BCCs (and not only those of the provinces of Trento and Bolzano) orients itself. It is hardly necessary to recall that these systems provide for a manager set up in the form of a joint stock company or a cooperative society in the case of provincial systems.
This organizational formula, currently already practiced in some Eurozone countries (Austria, Germany and Spain in the sector we are dealing with here), is based on a "liability agreement", contractual or provided for by law, which protects the participating banks and, in particular, it ensures that they have sufficient liquidity and solvency, allowing for a "high level of autonomy and independence of individual credit institutions" (as the ECB specifies verbatim in the 'Guide on the approach for the recognition of institutional protection systems for prudential purposes') .
Therefore, a disciplinary change is proposed which certainly should be particularly welcome to the mutual banks. It could put an end to the generalized malaise complained of by many exponents of the category, who resent certain constraints imposed on them by the leaders of the cooperative groups, feeling imprisoned in a cage from which - without said amendment - it is impossible to get out.
The moment finally seems to have come when the Bank of Italy will be able to accept – and support – the requests of the cooperative world, which relies on the traditional balance of the Supervisory Body to see the dystonic aspects of law no. 49, sometimes applied by the Parent Company without any form of sharing, without compliance with the requirements of the so-called membership agreement, the principle of so-called compensatory benefits, as well as with a authoritarian attitude which denotes, to say nothing of the other, the conviction of being holders of a "domain" which - as is known - does not characterize the spirit of the reform.
This, regardless of the dangerous financial effects of the probable judicial drift into which the BCCs belonging to the CCB group risk being dragged following the well-known action for damages against the latter, recently brought by Carige's shareholders. From another point of view, it is observed that the introduction of such a regulatory change should be considered in line with the guidelines of the policy, managing to achieve a convergence of intentions in the subject matter, which have been manifested, over time, even by "parties" of the opposite sign.
In this regard, the commitment - assumed by Premier Conte in his first programmatic speech - to intervene on the reform laws of cooperative banks, adopted during the XVII Legislature, appears to be significant. This was a promise that denotes awareness of the need to overhaul a complex device that affects the "most integrated banks in the area to recover their function", as the Premier was able to specify.
We are in the presence of a position that, as I said, is shared in politics, as can be deduced from the results of a sort of "general meeting" of the cooperative world, held in Florence in September 2018, when - together with some scholars ( Valerio Onida, Andrea Sacco Ginevri) and some exponents of the majority of the time (Bagnai) - I criticized the shortcomings of the conversion law of Legislative Decree 91 of 2018, at the same time raising doubts about the constitutional legitimacy of many provisions of the reform.
Therefore, a change in the special legislation that allows the mutual banks - dissatisfied with the methods in which participation in the banking groups referred to in law no. 49 – to recover their cooperative essence which has its origins in the affirmation of a solidarity of Christian origin. In this way, it will become possible to continue to give the economic sector an enrichment of the financial offer aimed at satisfying the needs of a particular type of clientele who, otherwise, would not be able to access credit.
