Economy
The general secretary of Fisac CGIL Toscana, Paolo Cecchi, was heard by the institutional commission for the support, valorisation and promotion of the internal areas of Tuscany of the Regional Council, to talk about the problem of the desertification of bank branches.
Fisac reiterated its opposition to the mass closure of bank branches as the process ends up penalizing territories, citizens and businesses, especially in internal areas. The absence of a nearby banking service produces problems, especially for the elderly population who have to move to reach the nearest bank branch, or for artisans/traders and small and medium-sized businesses who often need a personal relationship with the your bank in order to satisfy your credit needs.
The data published by the Bank of Italy indicate that, at a national level, this process mainly concerns central and southern Italy: 57% of the total branches are concentrated in the northern regions (in particular, in Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto has 40% of the total) while in the south 22% of the dependencies remain.
In our region in one year (from 2022 to 2023) the branches decreased by 3.8% (equal to 60 units) with a trend in line with the national figure; since 2015, a third of the agencies have been lost. Almost 50 thousand Tuscans live in municipalities without a bank dependency; approximately 18% of Tuscan municipalities host only one banking agency.
As regards the municipalities of the internal areas, it is noted that the recent trend of closures was slightly lower than the regional figure (-2.2%). The trend is justified by the fact that the majority of closures occurred in the period 2015/2020 (approximately); just think that, if we refer to 2015, the negative change with 2023 is equal to -39.5%. The trend concerned almost all the municipalities in the analysis area, but above all Garfagnana and the Arezzo area. Over 24% of the municipalities in the internal areas have only one banking agency.
Cecchi said: “There is a need to find immediate solutions to this process; in this regard, we ask for the establishment of a regional observatory on the matter, as has already happened in other regions of the country. At the same time, it is believed that proposals such as the establishment of mobile help desks operating every other day or the integration with other types of municipal services could alleviate the inconvenience for the population. In general, more agile forms of presence can be hoped for, as the fundamental element is that the citizen or company can communicate with those in charge of the counter and are also called upon to carry out assistance and consultancy activities. Last but not least, in a region like ours where just over 50% of citizens use Internet banking, it is essential to increase financial and digital education campaigns”.
