MILAN – Giorgia Meloni e Matteo Salviniwho wanted to tax the “unfair profits” of Italian banks, with their clumsy law will contribute to the sector earning 3-4 billion euros more in 2023. The choice of the option of creating capital reserves for 2.5 times The tax due, collected by all institutions, has in fact made it possible to halve the provisions on credits, and thus increase operating profits by approximately 15%.
A bonus that rained on us, after the interest margins realized by banks on assets, driven by ECB rates, produced net profits of almost 25 billion, around two-thirds more than in 2022. In the next few days the banks listed on Piazza Affari will publish the budget files, and you will clearly see “item 30” which measures the interest margin. Precisely the increase in “item 30”, compared to the 2022 or 2021 budgets, would determine the tax due by June 2024.
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However, after the summer negotiations with the bankers, alongside the Treasury and the ECB who never liked the first version of the measure, on 23 September the Treasury introduced the alternative option to the payment: it is enough for the banks to create “a reserve special non-distributable 2.5 times greater than the amount of tax due”. Whoever wants to distribute it to shareholders in the future will pay the tax on it: otherwise the money remains to strengthen the assets. All the institutions have obviously chosen this path. The “item 30” of the various institutions could present variations: it will also depend on the financing costs (many banks in December returned billions of TLTRO funds to the ECB, no longer free since the autumn changes ), and the actual size of BTP portfolios, which inflate margins.
Initial estimates
After the government blitz last August, however, several banking analysts estimated possible disbursements up to 2.5 billion for the sectorAnd. And the estimate, although not confirmed by the government, was supported by the figures provided by Intesa Sanpaolo (which indicated 828 million in tax due), Unicredit (440), Mediobanca (90), Bpm Bank (151), Popular from Sondrio (43), we (38), Mcc (14 million), Mps (125), Bper (126) e Credit Agricole Italia (87). The aggregate of the ten was almost 2 billion, for a sectoral total close to 2.5 billion. All things considered, according to some experts, the amount of tax due in theory will be a little higher than 2.5 billion: and the 2.5 times “non-distributable reserve” should amount to between 6.5 and 7 billion for the sector.
Fewer provisions
Precisely the new reserve, which also serves as a barrier against risks – and credit risk is the largest – now allows bankers to limit specific provisions against credit losses. On the 2023 accounts of the five largest banks (Intesa Sanpaolo, Unicredit, Mps, Bper, Banco Bpm) the provisions item fell by 47%, from 6.7 billion to 3.5 billion aggregated, equal to 3.2 billion of reserves in less. Yet the net impaired loans, as calculated by the First Cisl, for the five institutions they only fell by 1.5 billion, 8%. The ratio between impaired loans and total assets of the system is also stable, falling from 1.5% to 1.4%.
Moral: there is such an abundance of profits that banks can easily replenish their assets and reserves – limiting the obligatory credit requirements thanks to the billions allocated to avoid the “extra profits tax” – provide fabulous dividends and buybacks (the average return of the sector exceeds 13% in 2023). In any case, the “hay on the farm” desired by the governor Fabio Panetta to Forex for surveillance after the 2023 profits “even of an exceptional nature”, is guaranteed: also thanks to the Meloni government’s rule. But so far, it is above all the banking shareholders who are grateful, who will receive over 80% of the 2023 banking profits.