So-called application programming interfaces (or APIs) and a trend towards specialisation will atomise the value chain – which is the very opposite of the previous trend to offer as many banking services as possible under one roof.
These widespread inefficiencies depress potential buyers’ valuations of impaired assets and discourage their sale on the market. The unfavourable tax treatment of loan loss provisions, though mitigated, still does not allow their immediate deduction from taxable income, as happens instead in the other main European countries; this determines an accumulation of deferred tax assets.