Savings protection is fundamental for the future of Italy. This is the message launched during the 100th World Savings Day organized by Acri which was held this morning in Rome. “1924-2024. One hundred years of savings culture” was the central theme of the event opened by the president of Acri John Azzone, during which the president of ABI spoke Antonio Patuelli, the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, the Minister of Economy, Giancarlo Giorgetti, and the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella.
Azzone recalled how in Italy savings are "mostly held in current accounts", while Patuelli affirmed the need to facilitate them by "distinguishing them from speculation". "The annual flow of private savings today exceeds 400 billion, a fifth of the national income. Only part of it, however, finances investments in Italy", said the number one of Bankitalia, while Minister Giorgetti underlined the need to "mobilize private savings", to contribute to the needs of the country. Referring to Europe and, without speaking directly about the Unicredit-Commerzbank operation, the minister added: "a Capital Markets Union can never be truly achieved if the main market operators, the banks, cannot operate freely in the European market, with dimensions adequate to it". The event was closed by the speech of the Head of State, according to whom the fight against inflation and the protection of savings "are priority commitments for any State and, in particular, for our Republic".
Mattarella: “Savings are a value for the future of the country”
“What appears evident is the very nature of individual and collective good at the same time represented by the savings, a resource for the future, this is the second characteristic that is its own. The inclusion of the theme of savings in the Constitution is itself a value for the future of families and the country". This was stated by the Head of State Sergio Mattarella speaking at the World Savings Day.
According to the Head of State, “it is necessary to foster citizens' trust, with direct protections for savers and users of financial services. The role of banks and all intermediaries in meeting the challenges of innovation – especially digital – without losing sight of the needs of all citizens is essential to protect savings”. “Encouraging savings, to refer to the constitutional provision, means incentivizing it – he underlined – as an important source of the economic process”.
"Innovation has also transformed the financial instruments used for savings management, making them more effective, but also more complex to understand and manage, with exposure to scams, exclusion; and with difficulty in recognizing and exercising one's rights. This is why - Mattarella remarked - Financial education is crucial today for the exercise of one of the rights of citizenship capable of contributing to increasing the inclusion and, in general, the financial well-being of citizens”.
"The fight against inflation, the protection of the real value of savings are priority commitments for any State and, in particular, for our Republic" added the Head of State. And again: "The initiatives to encourage savings are, therefore, still necessary and welcome. The first condition is that it is possible to save at an individual level. Today - the data from the Bank of Italy tell us - 50% of the Italian population continues to be unable to save. With serious inequalities, and the increase in poverty risks perpetuating this condition over time”.
Giorgetti: Italy promoted by rating agencies, banks should operate freely in EU”
“A stable political context and a prudent fiscal policy are bearing fruit, favoring Italy's growth prospects,” said the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, opening his speech at the World Savings Day. “The latest auctions,” Giorgetti said, “have highlighted that demand for our government bonds is robust; the spread has narrowed significantly; the markets and rating agencies are promoting the government's action.”
Without directly mentioning the Unicredit-Commerzbank operation, Giorgetti sent a clear message to the EU and perhaps also to Germany: "a Capital Markets Union can never be truly achieved if the main market operators, the banks, cannot or will not be able tooperate freely in the European market, with dimensions appropriate to it,” the minister said. “In the Banking Union, and in European banking regulation in general, we will need to give competitiveness the same attention that we have rightly given to stability in the past,” he hoped. “We are not suggesting that we underestimate the lesson of the Great Financial Crisis, but rather that we keep in mind that – as we have recalled, even at a European level in the face of risks of international competitive disparity – stability and growth are two sides of the same coin; one cannot exist without the other.
“Giorgetti: “Debt will return to a realistic downward path”
Returning to Italy, Giorgetti said: “The Government with the Medium-Term Structural Budget Plan, in a logic of prudence, will guide the country's fiscal policy over the next five years, supporting the economic system and “bringing public debt back to a realistic downward path”. Over the past two years, he added, “our action has been guided – and will continue to be guided – by the objective of reducing uncertainties and making the most of opportunities”.
The owner of Via XX Settembre then underlined the importance of public credit guarantees that must continue to play "a supporting role" but with a "selective logic" and complementary to the banks' evaluation, arguing that such instruments are necessary especially for SMEs that have benefited from very high levels of coverage in recent years. It is essential to preserve a stable complementarity between the measure of the public guarantee, - albeit more contained than the highest average levels of coverage in the emergency period - and a constant and targeted work of evaluation of creditworthiness towards the business world" stated the minister.
Giorgetti finally said he was available for a “review of the Mef-Fondazioni protocol” and said he was aware of “the high risk” that cryptocurrencies represent for savers.
“In the face of digital innovation, it is necessary for savers to be aware, and to be able to appreciate the risks and especially to be able to distinguish between investments that, despite their riskiness, finance tangible projects and other forms of investment, such as cryptocurrencies, whose value is completely disconnected from underlying assets or economic resources and present a very high level of risk”. According to the minister, the recent European regulation will help distinguish and guide savers in this new terrain, but no legislation and supervision can be more effective than, nor replace, conscious individual decisions”.
Panetta: “Further rate cuts from the ECB are needed”
“The annual flow of private savings today exceed 400 billion, a fifth of the national income but only part of it finances investments in Italy", underlined the Governor of the Bank of Italy, Fabio Panetta, in his speech at the 100th World Savings Day. “In the five years preceding the pandemic, domestic resources employed abroad averaged 2,5% of GDP; if used to finance productive capital in Italy, they would have increased investment by nearly a fifth”, he stressed.
According to Panetta, “the solidity of the real economy is the first protection of savings. In recent years the Italian economy has shown encouraging signs of improvement. Longer-term trends are now of concern: conflicts, the fragmentation of global trade, divisions into blocs, demographic decline,” he said.
The monetary tightening decided by the ECB after the energy shock has rapidly reduced inflation, but "monetary conditions remain restrictive, and require further reductions“, he said, warning that now “we need to pay attention to the weakness of the real economy”: in the absence of a sustained recovery, there would be the risk of push inflation well below target” of 2%, a situation that monetary policy would struggle to counter and that must be avoided”. Shortly before the Governor's speech, Eurostat released flash estimates on annual inflation in the euro area, which in October should settle at 2,0%, up from 1,7% in September. In Italy, however, according to preliminary estimates by Istat, in October the national consumer price index for the entire community (NIC), excluding tobacco, recorded zero monthly variation and increased by 0,9% on an annual basis, from +0,7% in the previous month.
Back to the day of savings. Panetta said: “The European economy remains sluggish; still high real interest rates and the waning fiscal stimulus of recent years weigh on the situation. The Italian economy is feeling the effects,” said the head of Via Nazionale, citing the causes of Italy’s low growth, including “poor innovation capacity and little investment” and “a fragmented production system oriented toward traditional sectors,” weaknesses amplified by high public debt and interest expenditure.
Panetta on banks: “Towards merger operations, even on a cross-border basis”
Speaking of the banking system, in the weeks in which Europe's eyes are focused on the Unicredit Commerzbank operation, Panetta said: "In perspective, the high capital endowment and the foreseeable reduction in profitability could push banks towards concentration operations, even on a cross-border basis", Panetta said. "It is a step that will have to occur by increasing efficiency, creating strong, profitable intermediaries, able to better serve the real economy", he underlined.
Panetta: “Creating a risk-free European stock is essential”
In the European Union, “the creation of a capital market” remains necessary. And “the condition for achieving this objective, not the only one, but the most important, is the introduction of a European risk-free security, essential for the performance of the main activities typical of financial markets”.
Patuelli (Abi) raises the alarm: “Too many taxes on savings”
The president of ABI, Antonio Patuelli, instead emphasized the high taxation that affects savings.
“The savings of Italians, when “well placed through the banks is and will increasingly be a determining factor in development and employment and in the underwriting of public debt”. But savings "must be better protected, also because loans are made with the stable liquidity deriving from well-invested savings". And at the moment in Italy "old tax laws, long before the very latest technologies and artificial intelligence, still have equal taxation for savings and speculation“, stated the president of ABI, Antonio Patuelli, in his speech at the 100th World Savings Day, organized in Rome by Acri. Article 47 of the Constitution, he recalled, “states: 'the Republic encourages and protects savings in all its forms'”.
"The Republic needs to better protect the stability of savings investments both in liquidity-based instruments and in shares. Savings invested in company shares - continued the president of ABI - are subject to a taxation of well over half of the gross income produced, adding the 'flat tax' of 26% on the net income already burdened by the IRES of 24% and by the regional and municipal surcharges, by the approximately 4,5% of the IRAP, by the IMU and by the stamp duty". The latter, according to Patuelli, "is a wealth tax to be abolished".
“In the same XNUMX-XNUMX business days, until there is also unity in fiscal rules, there is and there will be strong competition between states to attract savings and capital. The heavy taxation existing in Italy often pushes Italian savers to invest abroad. All this must be corrected soon - is the invitation of the president of the Italian Banking Association - because the protection of savers is an ethical and strategic necessity for Italy. We need to better regulate technological innovations and artificial intelligence also to protect savings: a new digital constitutionalism is indispensable and urgent".
