, Columnist
The Italian (Clean-Up) Job
Italy's banks are at last dealing with their problem loans.
This article is for subscribers only.
When Italy's largest lender offloaded a bundle of bad loans this month, it dubbed the transaction FINO -- Failure Is Not An Option. That's an apt description for how important cleansing the balance sheets of the region's banks is to the wider economy.
Euro area lenders were saddled with 927 billion euros ($1.1 trillion) of non-performing debt at the end of last year, according to the European Central Bank. Italy's banking industry accounts for almost a third of the total.