La Bank of Italy “will follow the recommendation of the EBA with the flexibility required by the evolution of market conditions and permitted by the developments of the European negotiations on this issue”. This was stated by the general manager of Bankitalia, Fabrizio Saccomanni, speaking in a hearing in the Senate on the recapitalizations required of our country's banks by the European banking authority.
Saccomanni then specified that “the government and the Bank of Italy are working in the areas within their respective competences so that an analysis of the impacts of the EBA's recommendation on credit disbursement may be carried out at the EU Council in March, assessing the adequacy of the times and methods of execution”.
In any case, the general manager of Palazzo Koch judges The plans presented by the Italian institutes are "encouraging". for capital strengthening: "As known, the capital increase of Unicredit alone covers almost entirely the needs of this Bank and about half of the overall needs of the Italian system".
However, it remains “essential that the perception of the Italian risk on the markets is reduced and that it breaks down the perverse interaction between the sovereign spread and that of the banks".
Saccomanni believes that our institutions “remain solid: they have made significant progress in terms of capitalization and cost containment. However, they are affected by the tensions on the financial markets and by the economic trend, with negative effects on the profitability prospects”. Italian banks "they suffer, like other companies, a significantly more onerous taxation than their foreign competitors".
Also for these reasons, “preliminary information indicate that in the last quarter of 2011 banks' exposure to debtors reported as non-performing for the first time was significantly higher than in the same period of 2010. The increase it involved both households and businesses. At the end of last November, loans to companies in difficulty (substandard and restructured exposures) increased to 6,2% of loans to the entire sector (they amounted to 5,6% a year earlier).
