The ECB is drying up quantitative easing and will 'withdraw', in 2023, from owning government bonds in the Eurozone and also in Italy, a market where foreign investors are returning, attracted by good returns and families flocked en masse to subscribe to BTP issues. Value .
On the other hand, banks are decreasing, holding, according to the latest data from the Bank of Italy in January, 347 billion euros compared to 381 a year ago.
It will be seen from the next official data whether the percentage of debt held in Italian hands has grown or not given that a portion of foreign investments are actually Italian in asset management companies or funds based abroad. The flow of hedge funds and foreign investment funds is also highlighted by an article published on the ECB blog according to which the reduction of the Eurotower balance sheet (-22% from mid-2022) of 2000 billion euros did not cause major turbulence thanks also to the role of private investors, especially foreign ones, "traditionally very sensitive to high returns".
Before QE, these held 40% of the eurozone debt and were then diluted before returning to absorb "a considerable share of new issues" although they remain below the pre-QE threshold.
Then there are families, the subject of the BTP Italia and then BTP Valore issuance campaign in Italy, who also benefit from preferential taxation.
A strategy announced at the end of 2022 by the Minister of Economy Giancarlo Giorgetti, that of increasing public debt in the hands of Italian savers, and pursued with high-yield issues.
However, the return of families is not just an Italian phenomenon, although it has had the most visible effect in our country.
The ECB article also notes how at a European level families have returned to holding 3.5% of debt, a level similar to that held before the ECB's purchase program (PSPP) in 2015. Among the causes, the high rates and the "banks' slowness to transmit the growth in rates on deposits and financial products" as well as the availability of household savings accumulated in the months of the pandemic.
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