Banking desertification accelerates.
There are 3,300 municipalities left without branches according to the usual analysis of the Fiba Foundation of First Cisl on the topic.
In 2023, 826 branches closed in Italy, at the end of 2022 there were 677. A quarter of the national territory, with a surface area greater than that of Lombardy, Veneto and Piedmont, has essentially been abandoned by the banks.
There are 4 million and 373 thousand people who cannot access banking services in their municipality of residence, 362 thousand more than a year ago.
However, there are over 6 million Italians residing in municipalities where there is only one branch left and who risk finding themselves soon cut off from banking services.
Marche, Abruzzo and Lombardy are the regions experiencing the most pronounced decline.
"The race to close the branches has not stopped even in 2023, indeed it promises to record a further acceleration in 2024 based on the implementation of the banks' business plans. The increase in the number of desertified municipalities has now reached proportions from social alarm", underlines the general secretary of First Cisl, Riccardo Colombani.
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