The G20 of finance ministers ended in Chegdu in China. And Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan returns to speaking of banks with reassuring words and for the moment excluding the use of the bail-in.
“There is no risk – said Padoan – the Italian banking system is solid, of course it is emerging after a long recession that cost 10% in terms of GDP and of course Italy is a credit-only economy, which it is then reflected in the balance sheets of the banks”.
"Anyway," he added. there are few critical cases that have been circumscribed and resolved with a market process” he added, recalling the measures taken to speed up recovery times. For its part, the government has introduced structural measures that will help strengthen the sector - added Padoan, underlining their useful scope for reducing the accumulation of NPLs by reflex -. We are going in the right direction, there is no risk of systemic instability and of course the authorities are watching the situation very closely both at national and European level.
On the entity of "non-performing loans", the minister said he sees “wrong numbers around, in terms of that debt. I have read of several hundred billion euros which is a meaningless figure. The amount is a little more than 80 billion and many of these are well covered. There are excess NPLs in some banks, with which we are working on ”. In the future, with government measures, the situation is bound to change.
