Ignazio Visco: Address at Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders

Address by Mr Ignazio Visco, Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the Ordinary General Meeting of Shareholders, Rome, 29 March 2019.

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

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In 2018 the Bank of Italy continued its capital reallocation, a process that began with the reform of the Bank's ownership structure (Law 5/2014). As at 17 February 2019, the last date by which a shareholder could acquire shares with the right to dividends for 2018, 33.3 per cent of the capital had been transferred. Of the Bank's 124 shareholders at the above date, 92 became shareholders after the reform: 6 insurance companies, 7 pension funds, 9 social security institutions, 24 banking foundations and 46 banks. Shareholdings that exceeded the 3 per cent threshold introduced by Law 5/2014 amounted to €2.5 billion, out of a total of €7.5 billion.

Increasing the number of shareholders was one of the goals of the reform. On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Governing Board, I would like to welcome those who are attending their first Shareholders' Meeting. While the reform confirmed that the Bank is a privately-held company, it did not change the nature of the Bank of Italy itself: it remains a public-law institution that performs its functions in the general interest conferred upon it by Italian and European legislation.