If the current account becomes a citizen's right

During the week, a bill was approved at first reading in the Chamber of Deputies to introduce a new Article 1857-bis into the Civil Code, which makes it compulsory for banks to open a current account for anyone who so requests, subject to specific exceptions related to anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism regulations. Similarly, the banks' ability to close customers' accounts with surplus balances is restricted.

The text, unanimously approved by MEPs, stems from the desire to ensure maximum financial inclusion in order to make banking services accessible to all: a current account thus becomes a citizen's right that cannot be denied at the bank's discretion.

The ABI has expressed its opposition to a rule limiting the contractual freedom of banks. But credit institutions have little to worry about; on other occasions, too, the desired financial inclusion has remained only on paper. This is the case with the regulation on basic accounts, introduced into our system in 2012 with the signing of an agreement between Mef, Banca d'Italia, Abi, Poste Italiane and Aiip, as provided for by Law 214 of 14 December 2011. A tool that was also created on that occasion with the aim of financial inclusion, to facilitate access to banking services at little or no cost for disadvantaged segments of the population, albeit offering limited operations. A basic account that was, however, nipped in the bud by the banking practice of not pushing it to the counter, even going so far as to dissuade the few applicants from opening it.

A product that is still formally present by law in the range of offerings of banks and Poste Italiane, but that has never taken off even after the transposition in 2018 of the European directive 2014/92 that provided for basic accounts for all European citizens, inspired by the - what we can call phantom - tricolour version. Abi, Banca d'Italia and the bankers' unions themselves, which publish thousands of data on banking services, have never released an official number of how many basic accounts are open on the more than 48 million current accounts opened in total in Italy.

And if, with the new bill, it becomes a right for citizens to have a current account, it would also be time to expressly provide, in the course of parliamentary work, for the desired 'Service Charter' in banks as well. Banking would be even more part of an extended notion of public interest because it involves a community of subjects who are already obliged by law to rely on the services offered by banks.