The members of cooperative credit banks and rural banks are today 1 million and 407 thousand. A number that has doubled in the last twenty years, while the signs, in the last three years alone, have decreased by 15%. Customers – families, businesses, associations, institutions – are over 7 million. There are more than 36,000 employees in the cashier system. Data that frame the path taken by cooperative credit in Italy in these 140 years. And presented in Rome during the assembly of members, with a very evocative title: “The good community”.
Up until that June 20, 1883 there was not even a penny deposited in the cooperative credit accounts. Today the total savings in the Bcc-Cr exceed 188 billion euros and customer deposits grew by 14.6% in the 2019-2023 period. In March 2023, the gross economic loans of the mutual banks and rural banks amounted to 140.9 billion euros (+0.6% on an annual basis, compared to the -1.2% recorded in the banking industry).
Bank numbers
Net of non-performing loans, CCB loans amounted to 138.8 billion euro (+1.8%, compared to -0.6% recorded in the banking industry). The overall market share of the gross loans of the Bcc-cr, stationary compared to the end of the previous quarter, is equal to 7.9%. Also considering loans granted by second-level cooperative credit banks, gross loans amount to a total of 154 billion euro, for a market share of 8.6%.
A virtuous system, as recalled by the president of Federcasse Augusto Dell’Erba, fresh from reconfirmation, “for the positive externalities it produces”. Because “in the territories where they operate there is less income inequality and greater economic growth”, he added, pressing on the fact that the cooperative credit banks ”they support businesses even in adverse phases of the economic cycle and in situations of uncertainty, access to credit is easier for SMEs that are physically nearby”. Translated: the mutual banking model “increases the stability of the financial system”. “It is the logic of geo-circular finance: credit is disbursed in territories where trust has made it possible to collect savings”, argued the president. In other words, taking the average, “74% of the savings collected became credit for the real economy”.
Support for the real economy
The gross economic loans disbursed by the CBs to companies amount, in fact, to 77.7 billion euros. Net of non-performing loans, loans granted to companies amounted to 76 billion euro in September and were practically stationary on an annual basis (-0.5%) in line with -2.4% for the banking industry as a whole. Also considering the loans granted to companies by second-level cooperative credit banks, gross loans to the productive sector amount to 87 billion euro and the category’s market share is 12.2%.
“Credit is disbursed in territories where trust has made it possible to collect savings. A return is generated aimed not at distribution to individuals, but at its further investment. We documented it in the 2023 edition of the Consistency Report of the Cooperative Credit: on average, 74% of the savings collected became credit for the real economy. A loan is a technical fact but it is also lifeblood for translating people’s projects, aspirations and dreams into reality”, Dell’Erba pointed out.
A concept that the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella also wanted to return to, speaking at the Federcasse assembly. “Credit granted to small and medium enterprises – backbone of the production and employment system – as well as support for families, ensure that it is not only, obviously, a prudent and far-sighted exercise of banking activity but that cooperative banks represent a significant contribution to Italy’s share capital”, said the president.
The appeal to Europe
Businesses, but also families. In 2022, 16% of loans for home purchases were disbursed by a CCB-CR. And pay attention to the third sector. But cooperative credit, after the 2016 reform, is also under the supervision of the ECB, which does not always recognize the spirit of mutuality of these banks. Hence the appeal to the EU and to Frankfurt to consider this peculiarity.
A request also shared by the president of Abi Antonio Patuelli. “It is very important that in the Italian economy there are multiple different subjects in economic competition with each other and with other social and differentiated sensitivities”, commented the president of ABI, urging an update of the banking union “hastily born in just two years of preparation”. “It’s not yet 9 years old and I think we’ll need to make an overall assessment because to move forward we need to look at the critical issues and limitations highlighted – concluded Patuanelli -. In this context clearly also the experience of the cooperative world, especially in Italy, so anticipatory, it brings a contribution known to us at ABI for a constructive analysis and an update and development of the banking union”.