Record profits for Italian banks in 2024: over 46 billion, 112 billion in 3 years

In 2024, Italian banks recorded a new high in terms of net profit, with a total of EUR 46.5 billion, up EUR 5.7 billion (+14%) compared to 2023. A result that brings the sum of profits realised in the three-year period 2022-2024 to over EUR 112 billion, highlighting an exceptional three-year period for banking profitability, supported by an extraordinarily favourable monetary environment, i.e. the high interest rates decided by the European Central Bank. This is what emerges from a report published by Fabi (Autonomous Federation of Italian Banks)

The trend analysis clearly shows a turning point from 2022 onwards. After a less effervescent phase between 2018 and 2021 - marked by profits fluctuating between 15 and 16 billion and a strong impact of the pandemic crisis in 2020 - net profit began to grow significantly, rising from 25.5 billion in 2022 to more than 40.7 billion in 2023, to 46.5 billion in 2024. Last year, the industry's revenues reached EUR 110.1 billion, up 7.2 % from 2023 and a leap of 33.8 % over 2018.

Credit, which returned to prominence after the long cycle of zero interest rates, now accounts for 58.5% of total revenues, consolidating the counterbalance on commissions (41.5%), which for three years - from 2019 to 2021 - had dominated the composition of banking turnover

Credit quality remained solid: the ratio of net impaired loans to loans stood at 1.5%, with a coverage ratio of 52.5%, well above the European average of 41.4%. Over the two-year period 2023-2024, the disposal of non-performing loans (nPLs) for more than EUR 17 billion contributed to balance sheet stability.

"The record numbers achieved by Italian banks in recent years - growing revenues, profits never so high, efficiency levels among the best in Europe - did not fall from the sky. They are the result of the daily work of hundreds of thousands of workers, who have guaranteed operational continuity, quality in services, resilience in difficult times and adaptation in times of transformation. Without their commitment, such healthy budgets would not have been possible. It is also in this perspective that the 435 euro average monthly guaranteed with the national collective labour agreement signed in 2023 should be read, as well as the economic recognition for managers, obtained this week, which led to annual increases of 20,000 euro gross of the minimum wage. These increases are more than justified by the objective numbers of banking profitability and the extraordinary productivity guaranteed by those working in the branches, operations centres, general management and central services. We have always said that shareholders have been amply repaid, with generous dividends, year after year. It is right that employees, at every level, should also be valued for what they do, as has been emphasised many times by the CEO of Intesa Sanpaolo, Carlo Messina, and by all the CEOs of banking groups'. This was stated by Fabi's secretary general, Lando Maria Sileoni, commenting on the research on the performance of Italian banks in 2024.