Waiting for new wave of non-performing loans that will inevitably arrive, due to the pandemic, when the moratorium on mortgages is over, banks accelerate in the disposal of non-performing loans to lighten their balance sheets. The trend was already this in 2020 (38 billion Npl sold in the calendar year) but according to the thirteenth edition of the report Banca Ifis NPL Market Watch in 2021 there will be a further and decisive sprint: the estimate is of another 40 billion euros of Non Performing Loans to be unloaded, of which 30 billion already in the pipeline, to which must be added 12 billion Utp transactions. Banca Ifis estimates that in 2022, as a result of the Covid-19 crisis as well as the need to align with the European target (NPE ratio at 5%), the flows on disposals will remain high.
More generally, the estimates contained in the Banca Ifis report indicate a marked increase in non-performing loans in bank balance sheets with a deterioration rate or default rate, i.e. performing loans that pass to non-performing, growing to 2,6% in 2021 and 3% in 2022, mainly due to the default of loans relating to the corporate sector, with approximately 80 billion euros of new flows expected in the two-year period 2021-2022. This means that the stock of gross non-performing loans on bank balance sheets is expected to increase again (+19 billion euros in 2021 and +20 billion in 2022), with a NPE ratio expected at 7,8% in 2022. Banca Ifis' Market Watch also estimates that the total stock of NPEs to be managed in Italy (which includes non-performing loans, UTPs and past due), already growing in 2020 to 340 billion euro, could rise to 2021 billion in 389 billion euros and even touch the historic record of 441 billion euros in 2022.
As for the Npl market, from 2017 to 2020 it is estimated that there have been more than 50 billion euros invested to acquire approximately 214 billion NPL portfolios. The average sale price of the Unsecured portfolio is stable, while the valuations of the Mixed, Secured and UTP portfolios are conditioned by Gacs and big deals. All forecasts, a methodological note specifies, have been prepared taking into account, first of all: a 2020% impact of Covid on GDP in 9,5 and a possible recovery in 2021 of 4% (+3,8% in 2022) , an extension of the moratoriums to 30 June 2021, and in the presence of a soft lockdown that mainly penalizes commercial activities. In this scenario - explains the report - the support interventions activated by the government, the Next Generation EU plan or the recovery package of the Member States, the duration of the pandemic and the vaccination plan are decisive variables.
As regards the credit moratoriums, included in the Budget Law and which are currently "sterilizing" the impact of the crisis on businesses and banks, the ABI also intervened, which while appreciating the extension of the moratoriums, said that " it risks being nullified if the EBA, the European Banking Authority, which also includes the non-euro European countries (not to be confused with the ECB), does not correct or at least does not interpret flexibly the guidelines of the EBA itself which place a limit of nine months on the total duration of payment suspensions: there is the risk of having to classify exposures in moratorium that exceed nine months as non-performing". The issue was reported by ABI President Antonio Patuelli, who asked the outgoing Government "to make every urgent effort to have this provision of the EBA suspended or, at least, interpreted extensively, which is anachronistic in the presence of such a serious and prolonged pandemic" .
