ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - Angelo Apponi, the director general of stock-market regulator CONSOB, said Thursday that the Bank of Italy did not signal any problems regarding Veneto Banca ahead of a capital increase in 2013. The medium-sized lender was recently taken over by Intesa following a government intervention that prevented a bankruptcy that would have rocked the country's banking system.
Apponi was reporting to a parliamentary commission of inquiry into Italy's banking crisis. Bank of Italy oversight chief Carmelo Barbagallo told the commission that it reported to CONSOB in November 2013 that Veneto Banca's price for a capital increase was "incoherent with the economic situation, given the crisis that was ongoing". He also said the central bank considered the price off the mark because of the "negative income performance in 2012".
Barbagallo said that, in his opinion, this "was sufficient to trigger a CONSOB warning". 5-Star Movement (M5S) premier candidate Luigi Di Maio said Thursday that CONSOB and the Bank of Italy were putting on a "dramatic show". "They are kicking up a row and in this way they are putting us in serious difficulty with the international community," he said. "It is clear that those who have watched over things up to now cannot keep doing so". Democratic Party (PD) President Matteo Orfini said Thursday that the picture emerging from the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the banking crisis was "serious, grave and alarming". "It shows we were right to want to set up this commission," Orfini said via Twitter. "And (we were right) to day the oversight system had serious shortcomings". The PD presented a motion in parliament critical of the Bank of Italy's handling of the banking crisis before Governor Ignazio Visco was recently given a second term by the government.
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