Riccardo De Bonis graduated in Economics in 1983 from the Università Sapienza di Roma, with a thesis supervised by Fausto Vicarelli.
After working for Montedison, he joined the Bank of Italy in 1986 in an administrative role in the Supervision Directorate, dealing with prudential controls on large banks. He won a Bonaldo Stringher scholarship and in 1987, he gained an M.Phil in Economics from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
In 1992, he moved to the Bank’s Research Department, first to the Monetary Division and then to the Statistics Division. He spent the years 1994-1995 on sabbatical at Harvard University in the United States.
From 2000 to 2010, he was Head of the Monetary and Financial Statistics Division and in 2015, he became Deputy Head of the Statistical Analysis Directorate. He worked in particular on harmonizing euro-area monetary and banking statistics and on financial accounts. His main areas of study were banks, economic statistics, household wealth and debt, and Italy’s financial history.
He has represented the Bank of Italy on the Irving Fisher Committee on Central Bank Statistics at the Bank for International Settlements and in the ECB’s Working Group on Money and Banking Statistics. He has taken part in the OECD’s Working Party on Financial Statistics.
He has taught courses at several Italian universities and written articles that have been published in international and Italian journals and books, such as: Journal of Comparative Economics, Explorations in Economic History, Cliometrica, Social Indicators Research, International Finance, Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, Moneta e Credito, Rivista di Storia Economica and Economia Politica. In 2019, together with Maria Iride Vangelisti, he published ‘Moneta. Dai buoi di Omero ai Bitcoin (il Mulino). In 2012, with Alberto Pozzolo, he edited ‘The Financial Systems of Industrial Countries. Evidence from Financial Accounts’ (Springer). In 2010, with Zeno Rotondi and Paolo Savona, he edited ‘Sviluppo, rischio e conti con l’esterno delle regioni italiane’ (Laterza). In 2008, he published ‘La banca’ (Carocci).
Following the creation of the new Directorate General for Consumer Protection and Financial Education, on 22 June 2020, he was appointed as Head of the Financial Education Directorate.
