MNI POLICY: Italy Lawmakers, Lobbies Oppose New ECB NPL Rules

--Higher Capital Requirements Likely To Stifle Italy's Recovery

--Firms, Banks, Team Up Against Stricter Regulation

--Treasury Attempts To Downplay Concerns

--Berlin May Be Behind Push For Tighter Regulation Ahead Bank Union Moves

By Silvia Marchetti

     ROME (MNI) - Italy's nascent economic recovery could be harmed by new

tighter European Central Bank capital requirements on bad loans that may risk

hampering credit flows, stifling the recovery underway, unnerving Italian

legislators as well as the banking and industrial lobbies. 

     The bodies have asked Italian authorities to block the eventual adoption of

more rigorous regulation, currently under discussion by European officials. 

     Several officials are also concerned, telling Market News that Italy would

be hit hardest of all EU member states were the new rules to come into force,

due to the high stock of non-performing loans sitting on Italian lenders'

balance sheets and thus hampering lending.

     "Italy would be hardest hit by such tighter, stricter regulation, with the

certainty of triggering a new credit crunch just when we are heading towards a

1.5% expected growth this year," Democrat deputy Giampaolo Galli, member of the

Lower House budget committee and a former director at Italy's leading industrial

lobby Confindustria, told MNI. 

     Galli argued that new regulations on non-performing loans, currently under

discussion within the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), if introduced quickly

without a transition phase, would force lenders to increase capital buffer

requirements up to 100% as cover ratio for bad loans, draining resources to the

slowly recovering real economy.

     "Or, in the best case scenario, the new rules would push banks to rapidly

get rid of NPLs at very low market costs with big losses for banks," warned

Galli.  

     The outcome could put Italy's economic recovery at stake through weaker

credit flows to households and businesses wanting to invest, just when the

country is overcoming a long 'recession legacy', he explained. 

     For the first time, Italian firms and banks have teamed up against a

possible change in regulation. Italy's top industrial groups, along with the

ABI, Italy's bank lobby, have requested that any new rules must not be

introduced without prior debate at EU level and take into account the needs of

both firms and lenders.

     The ABI has forwarded a letter to the Rome government demanding that

"financial stability requirements must not jeopardize the goals of growth and

competitiveness of the European economy". 

     Confindustria has pledged to move at EU level to pursue its arguments

against tighter capital requirements, complaining that their introduction would

go against the long-term monetary policy planning strategy of the ECB. 

     A Treasury source however downplayed the possibility that more stringent

rules may actually come into force, saying: "This is a very technical issue

which must be analysed at a technical level and discussed in the next couple of

weeks, but we are confident that we are doing our homework so there is no need

to worry".

     The official argued that the rate at which Italian banks were curbing the

massive stock of bad loans on their balance sheets was "impressive, roughly by a

quarter in the last couple of months, thanks to a restructuring of the financial

system and the rescue of several ailing banks." 

     Italy's government has frequently criticized the way the SSM analyses the

bad loan risk exposure of banks, arguing that different national financial

regulations in members states led to different readings, thus shedding doubt on

whether the ECB's approach so far to tackling non-performing loans in the euro

area is correct. 

     "We are aware that the need of reducing the stock of non-performing loans

is crucial, but we also believe Italy's situation is well under control," the

Treasury source told MNI. 

     According to Claudio Pucci, head of industrial group Unimpresa, "the new

ECB capital rules are not harmonized and ignore the single peculiarities of

individual member states, especially Italy, where loan recovery time is longer

than in other EU countries due to a sluggish legal system" which the ECB has

never taken into account when assessing the impact of NPLs. 

     On Monday, the ECB released its latest annual stress tests results showing

that European banks are, by-and-large, ready for the eventual higher rates

expected after a prolonged accommodative monetary policy phase which may soon

come to an end. 

     The central bank, noted Galli, is therefore putting excessive pressure on

lenders to do their job in speeding up the disposal of bad loans, in the same

way as it is happening in the US, but such a rush would drain the real economy

from accessing vital credit at a critical juncture.

     The new bad loans regulation is strictly linked to ongoing talks on the

banking union progress. Member states are debating on how to move on with the

common deposit guarantee scheme and the public backstop in case of bank

defaults, envisaging a greater burden and risk sharing among peers. 

     Germany is currently against such a public backstop if lenders across the

union, especially in southern-indebted countries, don't dispose of their bad

loan overhang first. 

     According to a few Italian sources, the SSM's move might be the result of

strong "lobbying" from Berlin to boost the health of European banks before

further banking union steps are undertaken. 

     "Italy is the weakest link of the chain, if new capital rules are

implemented it will be very counter-productive for us," said Galli.

     "But I hope it will not be the case also because on such matters, according

to European law, it should be the European parliament to have the say, not the

SSM," he argued, adding that the Single Supervisory Mechanism might be

overstepping its mandate in setting-out more rigorous capital rules. 

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

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