"In Italy, more than in other European countries, there are tools to meet the needs of debtors in potential difficult situations"
.
This was stated
by ABI general manager Giovanni Sabatini
regarding the appeal of the president of the ECB Lagarde to the banks and to issue measures to mitigate the impact of interest rates on mortgages.
"In the current contingencies - adds Sabatini - it would be necessary to reintroduce regulatory flexibility to avoid pro-cyclical effects, in particular as regards the binding and excessively rigid rules of the European Banking Authority (EBA) on the subject of onerous restructuring".
"We hope that the European Central Bank shares what Governor Visco recently indicated when he recalled that it is necessary to balance the two risks that monetary policy can run, doing too little or doing too much and that today the two risks are symmetrical", added Sabatini on the matter. to possible new rate hikes by the ECB.
"In the current circumstances, a "cautious approach"
based on a careful analysis of the data and not too much on theoretical models is needed which in the current circumstances, strongly dependent on exogenous factors, could prove to be inconsistent or even counterproductive".
The
general manager of the ABI thus recalled the various tools available in our country:
"the so-called
portability of mortgages, i.e. the possibility of subrogating the mortgage at no cost to the borrower
which can therefore change bank and type of mortgage without additional charges, the first home solidarity fund (so-called Gasparrini fund) which allows you to suspend payment of the mortgage installment for up to 18 months in the event of events such as loss of job, layoffs .
Finally, the Budget law for 2023 introduced the obligation for the bank to convert the mortgage from variable to fixed in the event of a request from its customer". Furthermore - he concluded - "banks can suspend and renegotiate/extend mortgages on the basis of bilateral relations within the stringent limits of the European supervisory rules".