Statistics examined at international level suggesting that the ratio of impaired loans to total assets is higher for Italian banks than for those of the other leading countries have raised questions about the adequacy of the amounts in banks’ balance sheets to cover these risks.
International comparisons of credit quality and the adequacy of write-downs nevertheless suffer from the lack of a uniform definition of impaired loans. For Italian banks the definition of impaired loans  in conformity with rigorous prudential rules  is broad. It includes assets, such as restructured loans, that continue to generate cash flows.