Thus the Bank of Italy placed competition at the centre of its policy aimed at increasing the efficiency and solidity of the banking and financial system well before it was granted formal antitrust powers in 1990.
The precondition for the change in the Bank’s approach was the abandonment of the idea — widely held after the crisis of the thirties, not only in Italy and not only among central banks — that competition, or “excess” competition, caused banking instability and was antinomic with respect to stability.