The digitization of banking services is progressing, but for that part of the population that is still linked to off-exchange banking, the problems of branch desertification in the region are worsening. 7% of the Italian population lives in areas where there are no longer any bank branches: record in Piedmont (13.8%), but the phenomenon is particularly noticeable in the south and on the islands, where 11% of the population do not have branches. Banking “at home”.
In Campania 700 thousand people without agency
Campania is the first region in terms of the number of unbanked people: 700,000. This is stated in a note by the National Union of Mountain Municipalities (Uncem). “Cash withdrawals are increasing – a billion euros a day – but the branches are closing. A disaster. A scandal also for the trade unions that Uncem has always supported in the measures to protect the branches. Hundreds of letters from Uncem, with the indignation of the mayors and the association, to Abi, Consob, the Bank of Italy and the credit institutions have been of little use. Banks that leave the cities closed, uninterested in the businesses and the local communities. And profits are increasing. Paradoxes. The risk of millions of people being cut off from the legal circuit of finance and the economy is growing. National debates in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and parliamentary questions have also been of little use.
20ml share
As the Bank of Italy pointed out, at the end of last year there were more than 800 fewer bank branches in Italy. 2023 will see a further decline from 20,985 at the end of 2022 to 20,161 at the end of 2023.
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