Is it possible to really secure one's savings and save oneself from the risk of the bail-in which from January 100st will present the account to shareholders, bondholders and depositors of over XNUMX thousand euros of the banks that will go into crisis?
With this brief guide, we are addressing Italian savers to invite them to reconsider their ?financial choices, directing them towards less aggressive forms of use of savings. And above all outside the range of the bail-in.
The first thing you need to be clear about are the tools available to the average saver. They are summarized in a bank or postal time deposit, in a payment account, in a securities custody and administration contract and in an savings management account, with a low risk profile.
From the total or partial combination of these tools, preferably in their simplest basic configuration, solid prospects for defense against the risk of bail-in arise, with the benefits of specialization in terms of services to be satisfied, their less onerous, than the simplest control of operations, perhaps through web banking platforms, avoiding dangerous involutions, dictated by fear, such as keeping cash in safety deposit boxes or even keeping it, not only metaphorically speaking, under the mattress.
The basic criterion is to separate the funds held as a store of value from the monetary ones to manage receipts and payments, reducing the use of promiscuous instruments and not transparent enough in the prices applied, as the current account would seem to become.
In the event of bank failure, deposits and current accounts are, as is known, protected for each holder by up to 100 thousand euros and placement among several banks, which are independent of each other, i.e. not belonging to the same group, further spreads the risks. For collections and payments, the payment account, still not very widespread today, is offered by post offices, banks and payment institutions, so-called payment service providers, a category introduced a few years ago by a European directive.
The payment account, which can be mobilized with a payment card, via internet banking platforms and, increasingly, via mobile telephony, and operations with private individuals and public administrations, is fed with receipts and reduced with payments, according to the standards of Sepa transparency and traceability. The management costs are much lower than those of the current account, still on average higher than 100 euros per year, also because the payment account excludes the use of cheques.
Balances are excluded from bail-in. In the business world, after the events of the four banks in crisis, there is news of operators who have begun to keep current account balances within the limits of the protected threshold, even anticipating the most important payments, especially if they manage to obtain discounts from suppliers . Which in turn can replicate the same behaviors, in a chain which, for fear of bail-in, can even generate de-sharehold effects.
The deposit agreement for the custody and administration of securities is also excluded from the bail-in, unless shares and bank bonds are held there. With the same exception, asset management is also excluded, the transparency of which must be protected from any conflict of interest of financial consultants and managers, as required by the Mi?d 2 Directive, still to be introduced into our legal system.
Some asset management products are now offered for unit amounts of a few thousand euros, also offering themselves to savers with limited availability. This is, without a doubt, a positive novelty in the enrichment of the offer of ?nancial products, for which the need for maximum professionalism and correctness to protect the savings addressed to them is immediately understandable.
In conclusion, the bail-in presents complex pro?les, with implications that are not yet fully clarified, and requires targeted public information campaigns, such as the Pubblicità Progresso of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, on the changes that have taken place in the involvement of private savings also minute in the resolution of banking crises, but also triggers opportunities for better management of the financial resources of businesses and households. In any case it is now state law and it is useless to try to demonstrate that it is not suitable for our legal system.
Nor is it appropriate to establish disordered disputes with the European authorities which end up generating even more uncertainty among savers and greater frustration in those who have been so deeply affected at the start of the new regime. Even the actions for damages must be, if the conditions are met, extremely extensive, rejecting the explanation that what happened is the result of an insufficient aptitude for prudence by Italian families.
It would suffice to recall the rhetoric of the local bank to exclude that there has been opportunistic behavior among shareholders and generalized bondholders. A clearer admission of responsibility by the Supervisory Authorities should ultimately contribute to the strengthening of the general level of ?confidence, in place of the thesis of missing legislative instruments and obstacles placed in the way of supervisory functions.
We are reasonably sure that, in doing so, better times can begin for Italian savers and banks.
