(Finance) – There are more than 4 million Italians “without a bank”, that is, the inhabitants of the 3,062 municipalities in which there are no longer any bank branches, equal to 7% of the population total that counts 58.9 million citizens. This is what emerges from an analysis conducted by FABI, the banking union led by Lando Maria Sileoni.
But what can be called one bank desertification actually presents conspicuous geographical differences: if al North banking “desertification” affects the 6% of the population, al Center the phenomenon is more limited (3.2%)while al South and in the islands, where the issue is decidedly more pronounced, citizens who no longer have a banking agency “near their home” or at a limited distance represent the 10.7% of residents. At the level of individual regions, the Campania is the first region by number of inhabitants without a bank: there are almost 700 thousand.
A situation that is the daughter of the progressive closure of agencies by banks: the branches were 32,881 in 2012, but at the end of 2021 they fell to 21,650, registering a decrease of 11,231 (-34%) in ten years.
“The reduction of branches is creating and will cause considerable damage to the country and to the customers of the banksthat they will be able to play less and less the social role at the service of families and businesses“, comments the general secretary Sileoniadding “the political class does not care enough”.
Among the larger regions, the one that has a less presence of banksin percentage terms, is the Calabria with 28.8% of citizens residing in territories not covered by banking agencies. Then, to follow: Piedmont (13.8%), Abruzzo (12.6%), Campania (12.5%). Among the smaller regions, the record is Molise (37.3%) followed by Valle D’Aosta (33.4%). In the islands, bank desertification affects 6.7% of the population in Sicily and 6.1% in Sardinia.
Banking desertification represents a very significant problem if you think that in Italy the development of e-banking is still scarce compared to the European average: less than half of banking customers (45%) uses digital channels to access banking services, against an average of 58% and compared to major economic powers, such as Spain and France, which have customer rates accustomed to digital banking of 65% and 72%; our country is aligned with realities such as Greece (42%) and Turkey (46%).