Banking in Italy

This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of the banking industry in Italy and examines the current structural features, strategic challenges and concerns in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In essence the Italian banking industry appears to be dominated by polyfunctional groups oriented to relationship lending, and operates according to a banking law allowing banks to act as firms just from the 1990s. Such a framework opens new current issues such as the large amount of non-performing loans affecting Italian banks and the need for further reforms especially for cooperative banks.