Through the creation of the Directorate General for Consumer Protection and Financial Education, the Bank of Italy has laid the foundations for strengthening its supervision to guarantee transparency and fairness in dealings between intermediaries and customers in the supply of banking products and payment services, to ensure more effective support for the industry’s alternative dispute resolution body, namely the Banking and Financial Ombudsman, and to expand the financial education programmes targeting students and adults.
While import prices are now pulling up inflation – reflecting the impact of the recent recovery in oil prices – slack still remains a bit of a drag. Nominal factors – related to how firms and households set prices and wages – seem to have played a more limited role.