80 billion comes out of Italian accounts. Here’s how much you can earn

The new auction of Btp Value is already set for May 6th. In a couple of days the Treasury will communicate the interest rate it will pay to subscribers. Who to date have shown that they appreciate, and greatly, this government bond designed specifically for small savers. So appreciated that in the last year families withdrew as much as 80 billion euros from their current accounts and used them above all to subscribe to BTPs.. The data emerges from the Financial Stability Report published yesterday by the Bank of Italy. «The financial wealth of families», explains the document, «has grown mainly as a result of the revaluation of financial assets». It means that the actions and the same Btp purchased, they are worth more today than at the time of subscription. In recent months, the Bank of Italy explains, «the recomposition in favor of time deposits and bonds has continued. In particular, public debt securities have continued to increase.” The reason is quite understandable. The money left in bank accounts yields little or nothing. Savers have started to shift them towards savings accounts, bonds and government bonds. With the latter taking the lion’s share.

Today, approximately 13.5 percent of the public debt is in the hands of Italian savers. In just one year this share increased by 130 billion. But, the Bank of Italy recalls, the impact of investments in government bonds on the financial wealth of families is still low compared to the past. Today the share of BTPs in Italians’ total savings is only 4.9 percent. Before the great financial crisis of 2008, that of public debt, this share was 6.6 percent.
It means there is still room for it to grow. And this is good news for the Treasury which this year must place 360 ​​billion in debt with very limited help from purchases from the ECB. But also with a certain disengagement on the part of banks and insurance companies which, in recent months, have constantly reduced the share of Italian government bonds in their portfolios. Instead, they started buying back foreign funds again, which brought their share of Italian debt back above the 20 percent threshold.

THE PERSPECTIVES

The expectation is that the cost of funding for banks will now begin to rise. Or rather continue to do so. To contain the outflow, remunerations on current accounts must be increased. The Bank of Italy, however, observes that “the decline in household sight deposits in 2023 was stronger than what was observed in the twelve months ending last June”. For banks, there are two main challenges on the horizon. The first is the “potential worsening of the quality of loans resulting from the high level of interest rates and possible difficulties”. The second is precisely the collection, “in a phase”, recalls Bank of Italy, “of reabsorption of excess liquidity by the Eurosystem”.

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