(Finance) – Banks with record profits a 22.2 billion due to the growth in the interest margin and dividends paid to shareholders at historic highs of 10.5 billion. Yet the reduction in employees (-4,300) and branches (-1,000) does not stop, as a lever for the management of slightly increasing operating costs, while customer loans continue to decline (-3.8%): it is a to lights and shadows what a report from the Studies & Research Office providesto Fisac Cgil relating to the results of the former 7 banking groups between 2022 and 2023 fromthe titleBank balance sheets: the golden two years’. Lights in particular for banks and shareholders who are recording sharply increasing results and collections, shadows for many, including employees and branches who “disappear”, leaving citizens and businesses without physical credit facilities
The extraordinary results achieved by the banking groups, observes the general secretary of Fisac Cgil, Susy Esposito, “have not had an equal impact on the employment front, of settlement on the territories and on funding, which continue to decline, generating strong concern. It is a serious limitation, especially due to the need, as well as the very function of banks, to support an economy that is struggling and struggling. There is a need for a vision for the banking system which on the one hand enhances and increases the workforce, on which the digitalisation process will impact, and on the other supports the ecological transition of the industrial system”.
Operating costs slightly increasing – Operating costs are increasing slightly to 29.6 billion euros (+1.4% on 2022). The impact of the first tranche of the renewal of the national sector contract, the Fisac Cgil report states, has determined an average increase in the cost of personnel employed in Italy of 5.2%, for an average cost per employee which stands at 83 thousand euros. However, large groups were able to keep the increase in overall personnel costs to around 1.5%.
Declining employees – For Fisac Cgil the main lever used in this cost management strategy continues to be the reduction of staff. Globally, the decline in employees in 2023 is equal to 7,327 units (-3% per year); of these, 4,292 units (-2.4% per year) concern our country. At the end of last year, the employees of the top seven banking groups in Italy amounted to 171 thousand units; however, Fisac estimates, at the end of 2026 a figure of less than 170 thousand units is expected, around 168 thousand employees.
Numbers decreasing – Branches also continue to decline. Last year, underlines Fisac Cgil, the top seven banking groups closed almost 1,000 branches, a reduction equal to 8.3%. In two years, 1,385 branches have ‘disappeared’, equal to a bank the size of MPS or Banco BPM. It should also be noted that the percentage share of branches owned by the top seven Italian banking groups out of the total banking network in Italy continues to decrease: in two years it has fallen from 55.2% to 52.4%. The ‘digital first’ strategy implemented by large groups in recent years is determining a spatial reconfiguration of the presence of banks in the territories. A void that is filled, even if partially, by the emerging medium-sized groups (Credem and Bp Sondrio in our sample) and by the Cooperative Credit banks.