The capital strengthening is continuing: it is necessary in order to increase banks’ ability to hold up under adverse macroeconomic scenarios. The market’s evaluation of the riskiness of banks has improved. The regulatory changes currently released by the Basel Committee for consultation will require Italian banks to make significant adjustments.
They nonetheless start out from a better situation than other banking systems in terms of capital quality, having issued mostly high-quality capital instruments. The biggest impact could come from the proposal to deduct deferred tax assets from capital.