*  *  *  The subject of this event is so wide-ranging and the time reserved to deal with it so limited that, in my short discourse, I am only able to scratch the surface. At the same time, the subject is of great importance.
I am sure that Italian banks, faced with this new challenge in the most typical of all banking activities, the management of credit, will succeed in developing the instruments and mind-set needed by companies operating in markets that have been opened up to competition by the efforts over the last ten years of Parliament, the regulatory authorities and intermediaries themselves.