Italy took action later and has managed to reduce the amount of NPLs in its banks by about 30% in two years, and the share of NPLs in Italy in 2016–17 came down from 16% to around 11%. Hence, while progress has been made, there is still plenty of work to be done to maintain the positive trend in NPL reduction.
Figure 5: The reduction of non-performing loans by country (ppt slide) In any case, to mitigate risks in the banking system, it is important to reduce the amount of NPLs further. The position of the Bank of Finland is that the resolving of legacy problems should be separated from the management of future non-performing loans.