Italy’s smaller popolari banks, whose transformation into joint-stock companies was not mandatory under the reform, could also benefit from increased integration in some areas such as the pooling of production processes and marketing of their products. Some headway is being made in this direction and must continue.
In this year’s Concluding Remarks I also raised the possibility that these banks could take advantage of special institutional protection schemes based on agreements to provide reciprocal guarantees on the solvency and liquidity of their members, along the lines of similar schemes in other European countries, with benefits when it came to calculating capital requirements. This is an opportunity that merits serious consideration.