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Banking crisis, “solution as soon as possible”
ROME- There will be still time to “explain and clarify” how Via Nazionale acted on the banks experiencing difficulties, Ignazio Visco assured yesterday, with a not too subtle reference to the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry. But in the meanwhile a lesson was learned: “the banking crisis should be solved as soon as possible”, said the governor speaking off the cuff, out of the agenda given to the participants.
Something unusual. The final considerations are the “mastery” of Surveillance, the text has been checked and double checked several times before being given to the press. If yesterday, with Mario Draghi in the first row listening to him, the Governor decided to make a comment, there was a good reason, to be searched probably in that same urgency he referred to. The former Venetian banks, the MPS, which might be joined soon by Carige, are in a limbo since too long and thus Banca d’Italia, accused of having intervened sometimes “too late”, becomes an advocate of what was learned and reminds that “leaving the crisis prolonging for months is harmful”, because “with time the rules change, the people change, the circumstances change, the banking market changes”. A plea, that one of Visco, clearly addressed to Europe, and to that “mixture of national and international institutions, not connected with each other and with decisional processes not very compatible with the speed of the interventions”: not a precise quote, but it’s not difficult to understand the reference to The European Commission and the Bce, which have been bouncing each other the most serious reports since months worrying more – another relevant point – about the market efficiency rather than the stability of the industry, denounces Visco. But while in the offices the delegations are comparing endlessly each other over Excel spreadsheets, the banks are gradually collapsing: “If we want to avoid, as we should, to trigger the mistrust of the clients we must act in few weeks, rather than waiting months if not even years”, hopes the Governor.
Who then claims the progresses achieved – the merger between Banco and Bpm, the cooperative credit reform, the transfer of the good banks and that one of Cassa Cesena, Rimini and San Miniato coming up – and the surveillance activity over the 101 banks directly controlled: the 2016 monitoring was successfully passed by 60% of the banks, 35% is “under control and more intense and urgent interventions”, the remaining is being taken care of.
Another matter, the Npls: how, when and at what price to sell them. Better waiting rather than selling short, has said a couple of weeks ago the Consob president, Giuseppe Vegas. Yesterday Visco was more detailed: the matter needs a different approach from the (European) Surveillance, which should take into consideration the real dimensions of the problem and on the other hand the possibility of managing it in several ways. Concerning the first point, of the 81 billion bad loans within the Italian banks, three-quarters “are owned by banks whose market conditions do not impose to immediately sell them on the market”, has reminded the Governor. There are 20 of them, nowadays with a financial statement compatible with the internal collections, for which however there is no time left: considering the market is offering half of the value, “the amount of the additional adjustments would be around 10 billion”, estimates Banca d’Italia. Basically, a manageable sum and very different from the catastrophic evaluations of some particularly strict analysts. Even more so if the project of the European bad bank will take place, or more likely the project of national asset management companies, as suggested by Eba of Andrea Enria. Bankitalia approves, “ at the condition that the transfer price for the assets will not be too different from their real economic value”. But here there is the variable of time to make the difference: “The uncertainty delays the definitions of the transactions in process and discourages those that could be taking place in the next months”.