Italy Banks Waning Loan Quality Hurts Efforts to Boost Capital

From bloomberg.com

Italian banks are struggling to increase capital levels as fallout from the European debt crisis and the country’s third recession in a decade force them to boost provisions against rising bad loan levels. Italian corporate and household bad debt totalled 109 billion euros ($138 billion) in April, an increase of 15 percent from a year earlier, according to Bank of Italy data. Impairments, excluding writedowns, rose to 58 billion euros from 50 billion euros. “Asset quality and high non-performing loans are growing problems for Italian banks, especially as capital levels and internal capital generation do not ... (full story)