Due to inflation, Italians suffered losses of 152 billion euros per year

Financial losses associated with households using their savings, moving part of liquidity into banking instruments and increasing interest rates on loans cover the period from October 2022 to October 2023.

This is reported by UNN with reference to a report by Unimpresa and Corriere della Sera .

Details

Italians' current accounts have been hit by inflation and the cost of living, the Italian newspaper writes. It is noted that during the period from October 2022 to October 2023, the total balance of bank deposits of families and enterprises fell by 152 billion euros, from 1452 billion to 1300 billion. This equates to a reduction of 10.5%.

The data concerns when Italian families used their savings to cope with a surge in prices and then a rise in interest rates on loans, forcing companies to use their bank reserves to replace debt that had become too burdensome.

Among the factors that influenced the current situation:

• Use of reserves, especially by households but also by businesses, to cope with rising prices;

• Raising interest rates on loans that have become too expensive.

• Another factor is the movement of some liquidity into banking instruments that provide clients with higher returns, said research center Unimpresa, which concluded that some of the money in current accounts, approximately 85 billion, has been moved to deposits. For these deposits, banks recognize an interest rate on average of more than 3%, while for current accounts the average is less than 1%.

Total private deposits fell by €78 billion (-4.5%) between October 2022 and October 2023, moving from €1,701 billion to €1,623 billion. In particular, household reserves decreased by 66 billion euros (-5.6%), from 1170 billion to 1104 billion.

The decline in deposits reflects the need for families to use their savings to cope with rising prices and economic difficulties.

Inflation is the worst and most unfair of taxes: it affects the weakest sections of the population and limits the ability of businesses to invest in growth. The price index has dropped from 10 percent to 5 percent over the past year, but the harm remains, and everyone can see it. ECB medicines have proven limited and restrictive.

The expert emphasized that at the moment “a change in trend is necessary, and the cost of money should be reduced in the first half of 2024.”