Household savings grow by 7%, Rome and Milan out of the top 20

Italians' savings held in current accounts or invested in government bonds are on the rise. In nominal terms, the increase in sums held by consumer households is 25.6 per cent compared to 2018; on the other hand, at purchasing power parity - i.e. discounting 2018 amounts at today's prices - it falls to +7.1 per cent. But the trend has two speeds: over the last six years, savings invested in securities - thanks to the recent great comeback of BTp bonds - have risen by 20 per cent at constant prices; while bank deposits have lost about 2 per cent. This is stated by the Bank of Italy's Infostat data, revised by Il Sole 24 Ore del Lunedì, updated last April.

In particular, in 68 provinces out of the 103 monitored (the Sardinian provinces are excluded due to the lack of comparable data over several years) household current accounts closed down compared to 2018, again reasoning at constant prices: here the impact of inflation has eroded purchasing power. And the most evident effect can be seen in Alessandria (-10.2%), Rimini (-11%) and Macerata (-14.4%).

In nominal terms overall there is still more money than six years ago in households' pockets, but savings choices are changing. As the effect of the post-Covid liquidity accumulations, fuelled by the consumption freeze during the pandemic, has faded, the sums held in bank deposits have fallen again (-2.5% from April 2023 to April 2024), thanks to the rise in interest rates and thus the growing appeal of cheaper investments: although around 30% of household savings remain in current accounts, the amounts invested in custody securities at the end of the first quarter of 2024 reached €925 billion, €218.5 billion more than the consolidated figure at the end of March 2022 (+22.7%).

Compared to 2022 - when the first price flares were recorded - the total balance of bank deposits of consumer households fell by EUR 59 billion, from EUR 1,173 billion to EUR 1,114 billion. During this period, households had to draw on their savings to cope with the high cost of living and rising interest rates on loans. What has changed, in fact, is the value of money: by discounting the liquidity held in bank deposits to today's cost of living - via the ISTAT consumer price index for blue- and white-collar households - the erosion of purchasing power emerges.

There are provinces such as Bolzano, Brescia and Sondrio where total household wealth (securities under custody plus deposits) has increased, even markedly, compared to 2018: in 41 out of 103 provinces, the increase exceeds the national average trend.