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Economy and Business

From traditional banking to digital finance: the future of Italian savings, depositor protection, the stock market, and the relationship between capital, businesses and democratic sovereignty.

Luigi Carfora

President of Consorzio Suggestioni Campane Promotion

President of Confimi Industria Campania

The debate over the banking shake-up is often presented as a contest between major banking groups: who acquires whom, which banks merge, and which new players will emerge.

But there is a much more important issue that directly concerns millions of Italians:

what happens to household savings when the banking system changes and an increasing share of deposited money is transformed into financial investments?

This is the point on which I believe it is necessary to provide clarity.

First distinction: money held in a bank account is not the same as money invested

This is probably the first piece of information every saver should know.

The Interbank Deposit Protection Fund (FITD) currently guarantees deposits up to €100,000 per depositor, per bank.

This protection covers, among others, current accounts, deposit accounts, certificates of deposit and savings accounts.

But there is a fundamental difference.

Shares and bonds issued by a bank are not deposits and are not covered by FITD protection.

This means that having €100,000 in a current account and having €100,000 invested in shares or bonds issued by that same bank are two completely different situations in terms of risk.

However, protection does not apply indiscriminately to all money entrusted to a bank. Legislative Decree No. 180 of 16 November 2015, which governs bank resolution and the bail-in mechanism, distinguishes protected deposits from other liabilities and financial instruments. Protected deposits are covered, through the deposit guarantee system, up to €100,000 per depositor, per bank. Shares and bank bonds, on the other hand, are not deposits: they are financial instruments and do not benefit from deposit protection. In the event of the issuer's failure, they may therefore be subject to resolution and bail-in rules, according to the hierarchy established by law.

The consequence for savers is therefore very concrete: transferring money from a protected bank deposit into a financial investment means accepting a different level of risk. If that instrument is not covered by deposit protection and the investment loses value or the issuer enters into crisis, the invested capital may be lost, in whole or in part.

This is a distinction that every saver must understand before making any decision.

But formally knowing this distinction does not necessarily mean fully understanding its economic consequences.

FORMAL PROTECTION DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN REAL UNDERSTANDING

The regulatory framework provides for information, transparency, and assessments of the suitability and appropriateness of investments.

But we should also have the courage to ask ourselves a very simple question:

how many savers are actually able to understand everything they sign?

A banking contract or investment document may contain dozens or hundreds of pages, financial terms and conditions, risk warnings, regulatory references, contractual clauses and technical documentation.

Formally, the information may therefore have been provided.

But providing information does not necessarily mean making it understandable.

The issue is not simply that a saver may not read all the documentation. It is that the volume and complexity of the information can make it difficult to genuinely understand the economic meaning of the transaction and the level of risk being assumed.

For this reason, we cannot consider the mere presence of a clause warning that an investment carries the risk of capital loss to be sufficient.

The real question is:

has the saver genuinely understood how much they could lose, under what circumstances and why?

Protecting savings cannot be reduced to formal contractual protection. It must also concern the saver's ability to understand the choice they are making.

The risk of the "transition" from deposits to investments

This is where the way financial products are presented becomes important.

Money deposited in a bank account may be perceived by the saver as available and relatively protected savings.

When that same amount is presented as an investment, the nature of the transaction changes completely.

Invested capital may be exposed to issuer risk and market fluctuations.

In other words, when savings are transferred from a protected deposit into a financial instrument that is not covered by deposit protection, the saver may lose all or part of the invested capital.

The Bank of Italy recalls a basic but fundamental principle:

there are no risk-free financial instruments.

The problem arises when commercial communication tends to put potential returns in the foreground and actual risk in the background.

This is where the saver must stop and think.

Not only ask:

"How much can I earn?"

But first:

"How much can I lose?"

Because the most insidious risk is not necessarily a loss that has been knowingly accepted. It is a loss that the saver did not understand they could suffer.

The precedent of banking crises

Recent Italian history demonstrates why this distinction cannot be considered merely theoretical.

During banking crises in recent years, shareholders and holders of certain financial instruments have suffered losses.

When explaining the bail-in framework, the Bank of Italy states that shares and certain claims may be written down or converted into capital, according to a specific hierarchy.

Protected deposits up to €100,000 are excluded from bail-in.

For the portion of deposits exceeding €100,000, specific rules apply, including differentiated treatment depending on the nature of the depositor.

It is therefore wrong to say:

"My money is in the bank, so it is all guaranteed."

That is not the case.

It depends on what that money actually is and how it is held.

FROM TRADITIONAL BANKING TO DIGITAL BANKING: COMPETITION HAS CHANGED

There is another transformation we cannot ignore.

For decades, the relationship between banks and customers was built around the physical branch, the counter, the personal relationship with the branch manager or adviser, and the bank's presence in the local community.

This model has not disappeared, but it is changing rapidly.

The Bank of Italy has documented a significant reduction in the physical branch network: between 2008 and 2022, the number of bank branches fell by approximately 40%. At the same time, the use of digital channels increased.

And the transformation continues.

In 2023, according to data cited by the Bank of Italy, an online current account was on average 70% less expensive than a traditional current account. Three out of four Italians now use online banking.

This is an economic transformation before it is a technological one.

Traditional banks bear costs linked to their physical networks, personnel, buildings and local presence.

New digital models can operate with much leaner structures and different cost bases.

Competition, therefore, is no longer simply between banks with more or fewer branches.

It increasingly takes place between different banking and financial models.

And this difference also concerns the structure of costs.

Traditional banks bear the costs of physical networks, buildings, personnel and local presence; digital operators can instead use much leaner structures.

This creates a new form of competition that concerns not only the banking product itself, but the economic model through which that product is delivered.

This transformation can generate greater efficiency and lower-cost services, but it also profoundly changes the relationship between banks, businesses and savers.

IT IS NO LONGER JUST COMPETITION BETWEEN ITALIAN BANKS

This is the point I consider fundamental.

With the integration of European financial markets and the digitalisation of services, competition is no longer confined to the national territory.

Alongside traditional banks, digital banks, payment institutions and electronic money institutions operate in the market — regulated entities subject to the supervisory framework established by law.

The Bank of Italy has specific authorisation and supervisory regimes for payment institutions (PIs) and electronic money institutions (EMIs).

The European and international dimension of competition

This means that customers can increasingly access financial and payment services that do not necessarily depend on the traditional relationship with the local bank branch.

Competition is therefore becoming European and international, rather than merely Italian.

Electronic money further accelerates this transformation

The evolution of payment systems is also changing the nature of the relationship between citizens, businesses and financial intermediaries.

Electronic payments, online banking, apps, open banking and digital services are progressively reducing the need to use cash and visit a physical bank branch.

The Bank of Italy reports that cash is losing its dominant role in payments: in the euro area, the share of transactions carried out in cash at points of sale fell from 79% in 2016 to 52% in 2024; in Italy, it fell from 86% to 61%.

And this process will continue.

In July 2026, the Bank of Italy announced that seven Italian payment service providers had been selected to participate in the Eurosystem's digital euro pilot project, scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027.

The digital euro should be clearly distinguished from private forms of digital money: it would be a form of public money issued by the central bank and designed to coexist with cash and private payment instruments.

But its development demonstrates just how profoundly the financial and payments infrastructure is changing.

The point is not to determine whether this transformation is positive or negative. It is to understand that it is also changing the way citizens interact with their own money.

The distance between the saver and the financial intermediary may become increasingly greater: fewer branches, less personal interaction, and more apps, platforms, digital interfaces and decisions made remotely.

Greater efficiency in the system must not result in less awareness on the part of the saver.

Fewer branches, more technology: efficiency yes, but without losing awareness

We must not confuse digitalisation with danger.

Digital banking is not the problem.

The problem can arise from a lack of adequate awareness when technology makes it extremely easy to purchase a complex financial product or assume a risk that the saver does not fully understand.

The Bank of Italy itself recognises that digital transformation has produced significant benefits in terms of accessibility and costs, but may also create difficulties for people with lower levels of financial or technological literacy. In addition, reduced local presence may represent a limitation for certain services, such as financing small businesses or access to cash.

And this is the point.

Using an app to pay a bill is one thing.

Using that same digital immediacy to invest tens or hundreds of thousands of euros is another.

In the first case, an error can usually be corrected relatively easily.

In the second, a poor investment decision can mean a real financial loss.

The progressive depersonalisation of the financial relationship therefore makes the quality of information and investor awareness even more important.

Because the same technology that makes a transaction easier can also make it easier to assume a risk without fully assessing its consequences.

Digital transformation does not eliminate financial intermediation: it transforms it.

The power that was once exercised through the branch, the personal relationship and the local territory may progressively shift towards platforms, algorithms, technological infrastructures and large financial operators.

The question for the future will therefore not be whether financial intermediation will still exist, but who will control the infrastructures through which that intermediation is exercised.

WHOEVER INFLUENCES SAVINGS ALSO INFLUENCES CAPITAL

This is probably the point on which we need to focus our greatest attention.

When we talk about "influencing Italian savings", we are not talking only about a financial issue.

We are talking about a decision that can profoundly affect the individual saver's financial position and, at the same time, the allocation of capital throughout the country.

The saver must be fully aware of a fundamental distinction:

depositing your money is not the same as investing it.

A bank deposit benefits from specific protection within the limits established by law. A share or bond issued by a bank, on the other hand, is a financial instrument and carries completely different risks.

This difference may seem obvious.

But for the saver, it is not always so.

And this is precisely where the responsibility of financial information comes into play.

It is not enough to say:

"Your money could earn more."

It is also necessary to explain:

"What risk are you taking in order to obtain that return?"

Because a higher return is not a gift.

It is normally compensation for greater risk, a different investment horizon, lower liquidity or other characteristics of the financial instrument.

The real problem, therefore, is not to prevent savers from investing.

It is to ensure that they genuinely understand that they have transformed their savings into an investment and that they understand the risk they are assuming.

And this is where the way financial products are presented becomes important.

A sum deposited in a bank account may be perceived by the saver as available and relatively protected savings.

When that same sum is proposed as an investment, the nature of the transaction changes completely.

Invested capital may be exposed to issuer risk and market fluctuations.

The Bank of Italy recalls a basic but fundamental principle:

there are no risk-free financial instruments.

The problem arises when commercial communication tends to put potential returns in the foreground and actual risk in the background.

This is where the saver must stop and think.

Not only ask:

"How much can I earn?"

But first:

"How much can I lose?"

This is the transformation we need to observe as a whole: money is no longer merely an asset held by the saver; it increasingly becomes a resource that the financial system can collect, transform, transfer and reallocate.

True economic power therefore arises not only from possessing capital, but from having the ability to determine where that capital goes.

And it is precisely this capacity for allocation that could become one of the main sources of economic power in the future.

What appears to be an individual choice becomes, when multiplied across millions of savers, a systemic choice.

If millions of financial decisions are directed towards particular instruments, markets or sectors, the result no longer concerns only individual wealth: it determines the availability of capital for one part of the economy rather than another.

The allocation of savings therefore becomes the allocation of the economy itself.

This does not mean that savings should be politically directed. It means that the system must guarantee citizens and businesses a genuine plurality of choices and channels through which capital can be deployed.

SAVINGS, CAPITAL AND SOVEREIGNTY: AN ISSUE THAT GOES BEYOND BANKING

A saver may think they simply have "their money in the bank", while in reality part of their wealth may have been transformed into financial instruments with a different risk profile.

At that point, we are no longer talking simply about where the money is held.

We are talking about:

who manages it, through which instrument, with what level of risk, and towards what destination it is directed.

And this is where the protection of savings becomes, in practical terms, a question of awareness.

Because the most insidious risk is not necessarily a loss that has been knowingly accepted.

It is a loss that the saver did not understand they could suffer.

At this point, the issue of savings takes on an even broader dimension.

Because sovereignty is not merely the formal ability to elect a Parliament or a Government.

A democracy must also have the concrete capacity to govern the economic and social conditions within which its decisions are made.

Our Constitution states, in Article 1, that sovereignty belongs to the people. At the same time, Article 11 allows Italy, on conditions of equality with other States, to accept limitations of sovereignty necessary for the construction of an international order based on peace and justice.

It is on this basis that the process of European integration has also developed.

The European Union, however, is not a structure without limits: the Treaties establish the principle of conferral, according to which the Union acts only within the competences conferred upon it by the Member States; matters not conferred upon the Union remain within the competence of the Member States. The Treaties also establish that the Union must respect the national identities of its Member States and their political and constitutional structures.

For this reason, we must distinguish between two concepts.

One thing is to democratically share certain competences at European level.

Another is to progressively lose, through economic and financial processes, the ability to influence one's own capital, savings and real economy.

The latter phenomenon is not necessarily the result of a formally adopted political decision.

It may result from financial concentration, acquisitions, internationalisation of capital, digitalisation of services and the progressive relocation of decision-making centres.

And this is precisely what we need to observe.

Because if Italian savings remain Italian only in terms of their origin, while the ability to decide where to invest them, which businesses to finance and which sectors to support progressively shifts towards decision-making centres outside the Italian economy, the issue becomes much larger than a simple banking transaction.

It becomes a question of economic sovereignty.

From this perspective, economic sovereignty does not mean artificially keeping capital within national borders. It means preserving the ability to choose, compete and maintain alternatives, so that Italian citizens and businesses do not become dependent on a single financial centre to protect their savings, obtain credit or finance their growth.

And this is precisely where the issue of savings allocation takes on a constitutional and democratic dimension: not because the Constitution determines where Italians' savings should be invested, but because the protection of savings and the ability to govern financial markets are interests recognised by our legal system.

And economic sovereignty is not a concept foreign to our Constitution: Article 117 grants the State exclusive competence over currency, protection of savings, financial markets and competition.

The question, therefore, is not whether Italy should close itself off from international competition.

Absolutely not.

The question is whether international openness must necessarily mean the progressive loss of the ability to influence one's strategic resources.

I do not believe it should.

Italy must be open to the world, but not deprived of the tools needed to shape its own future.

Because internationalising the Italian economy is one thing.

Internationalising control over the resources that enable that economy to exist is another.

And this is where the issues of savings, banking, the stock market, businesses and democratic sovereignty converge.

And this is where the scale of competition changes permanently.

An Italian bank with a nationwide physical branch network no longer competes only with another Italian bank with a similar network.

It also competes with digital operators, banks and intermediaries that can operate across borders with leaner structures and different technological models.

Banking competition therefore becomes simultaneously technological, economic and international.

The economic sovereignty of the future will not necessarily coincide with national ownership of every bank or every financial infrastructure. It will increasingly depend on the ability to participate in decision-making, maintain alternatives and prevent the real economy from becoming dependent on a single centre for the allocation of capital.

MPS, MEDIOBANCA AND THE NEW BANKING SHAKE-UP: IT IS NO LONGER JUST ABOUT BANKS

It is precisely in this context that the words of Antonio Tajani on the banking "shake-up" and the Italian Stock Exchange take on particular significance.

The minister made clear that individual transactions must be assessed by the competent authorities, while at the same time identifying as an objective the need to ensure that Italian savings are properly managed and reach businesses and households.

He also described Borsa Italiana as a fundamental infrastructure for the country, arguing that it needs to be developed.

These two elements — savings and the stock exchange — are closely connected.

Because the real issue is not simply who will control a bank.

It is also who will control the channels through which Italian savings are transformed into capital and directed towards the real economy.

In the capitalism of the future, economic power could depend less and less on directly owning money and increasingly on controlling the infrastructures through which money is collected, transferred, assessed and allocated.

Those who control the infrastructure do not necessarily need to own all the capital in order to influence its direction.

THE REAL RISK OF THE NEW BANKING SHAKE-UP

And this is where, in my view, the term "banking shake-up" used in the political debate takes on a broader meaning.

Banks are among the main intermediaries through which savings are collected and subsequently channelled into different forms of investment.

If the banking and financial system becomes increasingly concentrated, it is not only the capacity to provide credit that becomes concentrated: part of the capacity to collect, distribute and direct capital becomes concentrated as well.

And this is precisely why the question "who decides where Italian savings go?" becomes an economic, financial and, ultimately, political question.

This does not mean that every banking consolidation operation is negative.

Technological transformation, digitalisation, international competition and the need to reduce costs are making profound changes in the sector inevitable.

But precisely because the system is changing, we must ask ourselves:

who decides where Italian savings go?

WHEN CAPITAL CONCENTRATION BECOMES CONCENTRATION OF ECONOMIC POWER

There is, however, another issue that we cannot overlook.

If the banking and financial system progressively tends towards greater concentration, the issue concerns not only who collects savings.

It also concerns who decides which businesses will have access to that capital.

A bank does not merely provide a safekeeping function or financial intermediation. Through the provision of credit, it contributes concretely to determining which businesses can invest, grow, innovate, hire employees and compete in the markets.

For a small or medium-sized enterprise, access to credit can mean the difference between making an investment or abandoning it, between entering a market or losing it, between growing or remaining stagnant.

This is even more important for local economies, where a significant part of the productive fabric consists of small and medium-sized businesses deeply rooted in their territories. When banks, businesses and capital tend to become concentrated in increasingly larger structures, the risk therefore concerns not only the individual company: it concerns the progressive loss of plurality within local economic systems and their ability to compete with large national and international groups.

This is why the progressive concentration of financial channels must also be examined from the perspective of competition, including territorial competition.

The risk is not necessarily that someone arbitrarily decides to finance one company rather than another.

The more concrete risk is that the concentration of financial decision-making progressively reduces the plurality of actors and criteria through which businesses can access capital.

If a small number of large operators acquire an increasingly dominant role in the allocation of credit and investment, it becomes essential to ensure that decisions are made on the basis of criteria that are transparent, verifiable and consistent with creditworthiness and the actual risk of the transaction.

Because the opposite would create a very serious distortion:

a company could be penalised not because it is less efficient or less creditworthy, but because it is less connected to the financial networks that matter.

Conversely, a company could benefit from more favourable conditions not necessarily because it is economically more deserving, but because it belongs to a stronger financial, corporate or relational network.

We are not claiming that this is necessarily what is happening.

We are identifying the risk that an increasingly concentrated system must prevent.

FROM CREDITWORTHINESS TO "RELATIONAL MERIT": THE LINE THAT MUST NOT BE CROSSED

Credit must be allocated on the basis of the company's ability to support the investment, the soundness of the project, its repayment capacity and the risk of the transaction.

It must not become a tool through which economic or political power networks determine who should be allowed to grow and who should be excluded from the opportunity to grow.

Because at that point, we would no longer have genuine competition.

We would have a form of economic selection determined by privileged access to capital.

And this would be particularly serious for SMEs.

A large company normally has more financing channels, greater bargaining power and greater access to capital markets.

An SME, by contrast, depends much more frequently on its relationship with the banking system.

If that relationship becomes increasingly impersonal while alternative channels of access to capital are simultaneously reduced, concentration within the financial system can turn into a concentration of opportunities for growth.

This is the point we must monitor.

The issue, therefore, is not to accuse a particular operator of unlawful conduct today, but to ask what institutional safeguards are needed to prevent increasing concentration of financial power from becoming, tomorrow, a concentration of economic opportunities.

CAPITAL MUST FOLLOW ECONOMIC MERIT, NOT MEMBERSHIP OF A NETWORK.

BEWARE OF FINANCIAL ADVERTISING

This issue becomes even more important in the age of social media.

Consob has drawn attention to the spread of false advertising and misleading content that improperly uses the names and images of institutions, financial operators and public figures.

The Authority has also reported the use of cloned websites, fake profiles and content generated through artificial intelligence to induce savers to make harmful investment decisions.

Previously, Consob had also warned about investment proposals disseminated through social media and other digital channels, often accompanied by promises of high and rapid returns.

Therefore, the risk we need to highlight is not that of generic "financial advertising".

It is much more specific:

apparently reassuring communication can lead a saver to transform a deposit or available liquidity into an investment carrying a level of risk that they have not adequately understood.

The problem can therefore begin long before the loss: it can begin when the saver is induced to change the purpose of their assets without fully understanding the risk involved.

THE SIMPLEST RULE: RISK FIRST, RETURN SECOND

Before investing, a saver should know at least:

Who issues the product?

What am I actually buying?

Is the capital guaranteed or not?

What is the risk of losing the capital?

What happens if the issuer enters into crisis?

Can I exit the investment whenever I want?

What are the costs?

What return is actually promised, and what return is merely projected?

Is the person offering me the investment authorised to do so?

These are simple questions, but they can make an enormous difference.

AND THIS IS WHERE THE ITALIAN STOCK EXCHANGE COMES INTO PLAY

The answer, however, cannot be purely defensive.

We should not be afraid of capital.

We must govern it.

Italy has an enormous stock of private savings and, at the same time, thousands of businesses that need capital to grow, innovate, invest and internationalise.

The Italian Stock Exchange can perform precisely this function: connecting capital and businesses, allowing companies to diversify their sources of financing and raise resources for growth.

The point, therefore, is not to prevent Italian savings from being invested.

It is to ensure that a significant portion of those savings can become productive capital, contributing to the growth of Italian businesses and the real economy.

It is therefore no coincidence that the Italian Stock Exchange is also being mentioned in the debate over the banking shake-up.

A strong stock exchange means having an infrastructure through which capital can meet businesses.

If the issue is understanding how to direct Italian savings, the question therefore also becomes one of having a capital market capable of offering alternatives to banking intermediation alone.

Savings should not necessarily be transformed into capital through a single channel. Savers must be able to choose, with awareness and adequate information, how they wish to participate in the growth of the real economy.

This is also why an efficient and genuinely contestable capital market is important.

The more numerous and diversified the channels through which a company can raise capital, the lower the risk that its future will depend on a single financial system.

The plurality of capital markets is therefore not merely a matter of financial efficiency. It is also a form of economic pluralism.

Just as a democracy needs a plurality of decision-making centres, a competitive economy needs a plurality of channels through which capital can be raised and allocated.

An efficient stock exchange, open financial markets, alternative financing instruments and a plurality of intermediaries can therefore represent not only instruments for growth, but also mechanisms for balancing economic power.

Diversifying sources of capital is not only about finding more money.

It is also about preventing whoever controls a single channel from becoming the arbiter of companies' opportunities for growth.

THE REAL PROBLEM IS NOT MOBILISING SAVINGS. IT IS WHO MOBILISES THEM AND FOR WHAT

This, for me, is the central issue.

It is not enough to know that savings must be mobilised.

We must know through which instruments, with what level of risk, towards which recipients and with what degree of awareness on the part of the saver.

If Italian savings are mobilised to finance:

businesses → innovation → infrastructure → technology → internationalisation → employment,

they become an extraordinary lever for development. 

If, on the other hand, it is simply concentrated within large financial structures and channelled according to logic that is increasingly distant from the Italian real economy, the risk is that we progressively lose the ability to make decisions about our own capital.

And this directly concerns the middle class.

The family that saves.

The entrepreneur who reinvests.

The SME that builds up capital.

These are the people who have created a fundamental part of Italy's wealth.

It is therefore not a question of choosing between large banks and small banks. A healthy economic system needs both.

Large banks can provide economies of scale, international capabilities and access to global markets.

Local and regional banks can maintain knowledge of the productive fabric, proximity to businesses and the ability to assess realities that cannot always be fully understood through standardised models.

The real strength of the system lies in the plurality of financing channels, not in their homogenisation.

THE NEXT FRONTIER: WHO WILL CONTROL CAPITAL ALLOCATION?

The real change we must prepare to face does not concern only the size of banks or their ability to collect savings.

It concerns something much deeper:

who will have the ability to decide where capital will be directed?

In the economic system of the future, power will depend not only on the amount of capital owned, but increasingly on the ability to collect, transfer, select and allocate it.

Once a saver's money enters the financial system, it can become credit, investment, risk capital, corporate financing, infrastructure, technology or a financial asset.

The decisive question therefore becomes:

who determines which of these destinations will have access to capital and which will instead be excluded?

This is not a question that concerns banks alone.

It concerns traditional banks, digital banks, financial intermediaries, capital markets, technology platforms and the new financial infrastructures that are progressively assuming an increasingly important role in the economy.

Digital transformation can make the system more efficient.

European integration can expand investment opportunities.

Banking consolidation can generate economies of scale and greater international competitiveness.

But the efficiency of large financial groups must not result in the marginalisation of local economies and smaller businesses, which are an essential part of the European and Italian productive structure.

But all these processes also raise a fundamental new question: how pluralistic will the system be through which decisions are made about where capital is directed?

Because greater efficiency must not necessarily mean greater concentration of power.

The real challenge in the coming years will therefore be to maintain a balance between efficiency, competition and plurality in the channels through which capital is allocated, without sacrificing one in favour of another.

This is the real balance we will have to build in the years ahead.

It is not about defending the old banking system against the new one.

It is about preventing financial modernisation from producing, as a side effect, a progressive reduction in the alternatives available to savers and businesses.

Because if there is only one major financial circuit through which capital flows, whoever controls that circuit inevitably acquires economic power greater than that derived from simply owning the capital itself.

And this is precisely why plurality among banks, markets, financial instruments and sources of financing is not merely a matter of competition.

It is a form of balance in economic power.

We must not protect the past. We must protect the future

I do not believe the solution is to return to a banking system based solely on branches and banknotes.

That world is over.

Digital banking is the present.

Electronic money is the present.

International competition is the present.

Banking consolidation, within certain limits, can be a natural consequence of market evolution.

What is not inevitable is losing the ability of our productive system, especially SMEs and local economies, to access capital and compete for it.

We must therefore build a model in which:

Italian savings → capital markets → Italian businesses → investment → innovation → growth → employment.

And not:

Italian savings → financial concentration → capital increasingly distant from the real economy.

Economic sovereignty does not mean keeping capital within national borders. It means not losing the ability to choose, compete and build alternatives.

The real banking shake-up

For this reason, the debate over the banking shake-up cannot be limited to acquisitions and mergers.

The decisive question is:

who will control Italian capital tomorrow, and who will decide how it is used?

An efficient banking system is necessary.

Modern finance is necessary.

A strong stock exchange is necessary.

International competition is necessary.

But it is equally necessary to protect savings, provide citizens with accurate information and maintain a strong link between capital and the real economy.

And the first form of protection is not to prevent citizens from investing, but to genuinely put them in a position to understand when they are making a deposit, when they are investing and what risk they are assuming.

Because savings are not merely an item on bank balance sheets.

They are the result of the work, sacrifices and trust of millions of Italians.

And when those savings are transformed into capital, they must continue to be able to reach businesses capable of creating value, employment, innovation and growth.

And this is precisely why savings cannot be treated as a faceless and unaccountable financial resource.

They must be protected, properly informed and placed in a position to be used consciously.

Transparency Notice

This article is intended solely for informational and educational purposes and does not constitute financial advice, a solicitation to invest, a personalised investment recommendation, or an offer or invitation to purchase or sell financial instruments. The views expressed represent the author's assessments and reflections on possible economic and financial scenarios. The regulatory and institutional information referred to in this article should be verified against the relevant official sources and the legislation in force at the time of reading. Before making any investment decision, each saver should independently assess their own circumstances and, where necessary, seek advice from an authorised intermediary or professional.

Luigi Carfora

President of Consorzio Suggestioni Campane Promotion

President of Confimi Industria Campania