Installing adjustable rate (or newly issued) mortgages is a growing burden for Italian families. According to the latest Bank of Italy data for February, interest rates have risen above 4% (including utilities). More precisely, the value is 4.12%, up from 3.95% in January. The interest rate for consumer loans is now 9.88% (previous month 9.79%). The National Consumers Association calculates that the new increase will result in a €159 increase in the average rate compared to last year. “Not only are prices going from 3.95 to 4.12 in just one month, +0.17% but compared to February 2022, when they were 1.85, they are up 2.27 percentage points,” he says Massimiliano Dona, President of the Unc. “If you look at the size and average length of a mortgage, such a sharp rise in interest rates means that for those who have variable-rate mortgages now, the rate is going up compared to a year ago, from 585 to 744 euros, with an increase of 159 euros per month. An annual blow equal 1908 euroscloses Dona.
However, the February value does not yet take into account the interest rate hike decided by the European Central Bank in March, which will inevitably lead to a further increase in mortgage and credit rates. Given rising consumer prices Wages that don’t go up and rates that do Italian families are forced to dent their savings. According to figures released by the Bank of Italy, private sector deposits fell by 2.4% yoy. Therefore, credits are used which grew by 1.1% over twelve months. Loans to households rose 2.5 percent year-on-year (3.0 in the previous month), while that to non-financial corporations fell 0.5 percent (in the previous month the annual rate of change was zero).
Despite the worsening situation, the governor of the Bank of Italy and a member of the Executive Board of the ECB Ignacio Visco, continues to call for wage moderation and denies the studies of the European Central Bank itself, which has repeatedly pointed out that inflation depends mainly on companies raising prices above costs and has called for measures to support workers’ purchasing power. An appeal that Visco promptly carried out by the government Giorgia Meloni who reiterated yesterday that wages do not need to be increased. evoking a “dangerous spiral” completely absent wage prices, he replies with a another mini cut in the control wedge which will leave the employees a few euros more per month. A measure openly designed to appease workers’ demands and keep wages low in a country where wages have risen by 0.3% over the past 30 years and every fourth employee is in relative poverty.