Despite the recent cuts of the rates operated by the ECB, in Italy those who turn on a mortgage or ask for a loan are faced with among the highest costs in Europe. Fabi also spoke of this problem, the autonomous federation of Italian banking, with his secretary general Lando Maria Sileoni intervened in L ‘Air that pulls On La7.
According to Fabi, the banks have chosen to retain the advantages deriving from the cuts decided by the ECB, allocating them to strengthen their reserves and finance internal operations instead of pouring them on customers. The result is an increasingly difficult access to the house, with families forced to support high installments even if the ECB has reduced the cost of money.
A misalignment that penalizes the mutuails
According to a report released by Fabi at the end of July, banks have chosen not to transfer the benefits of the drop in the cost of money to customers, preferring to consolidate their margins.
From January 2022, when the official ECB rate was 0% and mortgages traveled on average at 1.78%, a continuous climb started. Already before the ECB interventions, bank rates had risen over 2.4%. With the start of the restrictive phase, from July 2022 to September 2023, the official rate reached 4.50%, while mortgages touched 4.92% in November 2023, more than doubled compared to a year and a half before.
The effect was a drop in the overall stock of mortgages: from 427 billion in December 2022 to 421 billion in May 2024. Only with the first cuts decided by the ECB, starting from June 2024, did a slow inversion be seen: the rates dropped to 3.58% in May 2025 and the stock was climbed at 431 billion.
But, as Fabi points out, between the end of 2024 and the first months of 2025, the reduction of the rates applied by the banks has in fact stopped, leaving a constant gap of over a point and a half compared to the official rate of the ECB, which fell to 2% in May 2025.
Too high rates, politics should intervene on banks
According to Fabi, a more decisive role of institutions would be needed, for example with stronger public guarantees on mortgages to lighten the load on families. Without government intervention, Sileoni warns, to dictate the rules they could be foreign capital:
We will be forced to deal with the Chinese and American funds that will enter heavily in the capital of the banks of our country.
For the union the time has come to turn the page:
It’s time for new answers. Concrete tools are needed to prevent excessive debt, more transparency in contractual conditions and, above all, a decisive public intervention.
Fabi secretary has also dealt with the theme of the useful records of the banks and the possible introduction of a tax on extraprofit. According to Sileoni, more than a punitive measure, a direct confrontation with the government would be needed:
I believe that banks, if they were called by the government to sit around a table, would be willing to support projects in various sectors, from healthcare to research to contrast poverty and social unease.
Prices of growing houses and rentals
Buying or renting a house in Italy has become increasingly expensive. Bankitalia’s latest investigation photographs a live market: in the second quarter 2025 the prices of homes continued to rise, with stronger increases in peripheral areas and a more contained growth in large cities. For the next few months via Nazionale sees a possible slowdown in prices, a small glimmer for those who want to buy.
Even rents do not give respite: the canons continue to grow, albeit with some sign of slowdown. The average discount remains around 2.8% and the pressure remains high especially in urban centers. The expansion of short rents, increasingly widespread in the center and in the north-east, which remove properties from the traditional market and contribute to bringing both the sales prices and the leases, are also weighed.
Mortgages: simpler access, but still heavy rates
On the mortgages the situation appears to two sides. Getting a loan today is less complicated: just 17% of operators report difficult to access credit, the lowest figure since 2019, and over 63% of the purchases of houses are covered by a mortgage.
But rates continue to stay high. In June 2025 the Middle Taeg touched 3.6%, slightly increased compared to 3.58% of May, as detected by Bankitalia.
We are no longer at the record levels of a few years ago, but the cost remains higher than it would be expected after the ECB has reduced the reference rate to 2%. For Fabi, the transmission belt between monetary policy and credit market continues to get stuck: the benefits of the cuts do not really reach families.
