Ignazio Visco: 2018 World Savings Day

Address by Mr Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the 94th World Savings Day, organized by the Association of Italian Foundations and Savings Banks (ACRI), Rome, 31 October 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

The protection of savings calls, in the first place, for economic policies to ensure balanced financial conditions, stabilize cyclical fluctuations in the economy, and improve growth potential. Supervising financial intermediaries contributes to the protection of savings; it acts to contain crises and their repercussions on the economy, although it cannot eliminate them entirely.

In Italy the long and severe recession was exacerbated by some instances of malfeasance within the banking system which, though few in number, had serious consequences at local level. The deployment of government resources in support of the financial sector was much lower than in the other main European countries. The latest Eurostat data show that its impact on the public debt reached a high of 1.3 per cent of GDP at the end of 2017, while in France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, the peaks in the crisis years were around 4, 5, 12 and 13 per cent.