The Bank of Italy will soon undertake a statistical survey of bad debts, designed to help banks to do more. It is time that the management of non-performing loans be given resources proportional to their weight on balance sheets, adopting a more business-oriented approach, bank size and operating model permitting.
Failing this, their management should be outsourced to specialized operators, with gains in efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the share of non-performing loans (almost one third of the total) to firms in temporary difficulty but with sound chances of making a turnaround, especially given the strengthening of the economic recovery, could be managed better.