The battle to remunerate current accounts risks competing with government bonds

At a time when politics is busy suggesting improbable “nationalisations” of Italian savings, the idea of ​​”leaving” Italian liquidity in the hands of the banks is not particularly coherent. Unless the government is looking for the populist casus belli to proceed with an extraordinary levy on the profits of lenders

The Italian government, with the Minister of Economy and Finance Giancarlo Giorgetti in the front row for obvious reasons of role, he is becoming particularly vocal in requesting that banks remunerate current accounts, where almost 2,000 billion of household and business liquidity is still stationed. The interest rate on sight deposits did not rise in parallel with lending rates, and this contributed to excellent quarterly accounts for lenders. The executive is carrying out an intense moral suasion action on the banks, with not too veiled threats to put their hand to a form of taxation of the so-called extra-profits in case of non-compliance.