own specific deposit insurance fund, and their retail nature is confirmed by the share
on the deposit market (7.7% in 2015) over the share in the loan market (7.2%) [5].
Besided the National Association of BCCs, the mutual banks of Italy are
members of the European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB), which is
currently implementing the reform of the reorganization of Italian mutual banks, which
includes:
- the consolidation of all 317 Italian BCCs into a single banking group under the
supervision of the Single Supervisory Mechanism of ECB;
- the creation of a central body owned by a banking group in the form of a joint-
stock company;
- the majority of shares will belong to local mutual banks, while some will be
listed in the open market;
- the central authority will have the power to intervene in BCCs, but each BCC
will remain a full-fledged mutual bank and will keep its banking license [6].
The geographical distribution of branches shows a significant presence of banks
in the North (58%), in particular in the regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna,
against 21% in the South and in Sicily.
As for the size of bank, 36% of the total number of Italian banks belongs to the
largest banks (assets over 60 billion euros), the rest are proportionally divided between
large (assets in the range of 26-60 billion euros), average (assets in the range of 9-26
billion euros), small (assets in the range of 1.3-9 billion euros) and insignificant (assets
less than 1.3 billion euros) banks [7].
At the turn of the 1990s, the system was considered outdated, as its essential
features remained unchanged since the 1930s: a large number of banks and a small
number of branches; local oligopolies were dominating. Since 1990, the structure has
changed due to two main factors:
1) The growth of the number of branches: the number increased from 16.6
thousand in 1990 to 31.9 thousand in 2015: more new branches were established in
these twenty years than in the previous sixty. The opening of new branches has benefit
the competition between banks [3].
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