2016-02-16economist.com

... some countries appear to have taken so long to deal with their banks that they will now struggle to clean them up at all. The IMF reckons that the total amount of non-performing debt in Europe was around €1 trillion ($1.13 trillion) at the end of 2014. Bail-in is an especially ugly prospect in countries where bank debt is owned not only by diversified financial institutions but also by local retail investors. Under such conditions, politicians may find that they cannot force the cost of cleaning up balance-sheets on voters without causing uproar.

No country is more impaled on this dilemma than Italy. The gross value of non-performing loans makes up a whopping 18% of their total lending; retail investors own some €200 billion of bank bonds, equivalent to 12% of GDP. A government plan to buy bad debts from the banks at close to face value would fall foul of European rules against "state aid". But selling the loans at a significant discount would force Italian banks to recognise losses, some of which could be borne by retail investors. The prime minister, Matteo Renzi, headed down this road late last year, when the efforts to save four small banks clobbered the savings of individual Italians and seemingly resulted in a high-profile suicide. He will not want to do so again.

The European Union and the Italian government recently agreed on a half-baked alternative to bail-in, though few think it will cleanse banks' balance-sheets. Instead Italy seems trapped between the rock of hurting small savers and the hard place of a banking system strangled by bad debts. If Mr Renzi cannot negotiate his way round the new rules on bail-in, Italy's banks and economy risk years of more stagnation, poisoning relations with the EU. Behind this week's banking headlines is the threat of something very bad coming out of Italy.



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