Maria Carla Malinconico

Maria Carla Malinconico

Head of the On-site Supervisory Inspectorate

Born in Lecce on 14 November 1966, she graduated in Law in 1989 from LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. She qualified for legal practice and worked as an independent lawyer until 1993. Concurrently, she engaged in academic activities in the field of bancassurance and contributed to legal reviews concerning banking law and financial markets regulation.

In 1994, she joined Banca d'Italia, where she pursued a career in banking and financial supervision, progressively assuming positions of increasing responsibility. At the Milan Branch, she was involved in the supervision of cooperative banks and newly established financial intermediaries, as well as in coordinating inspection activities across the Lombardy region. From 1998, at the Brescia Branch, she supported the management of the unit responsible for the supervision of nationally significant banking groups and a diversified set of non-bank intermediaries.

In 2003, she was appointed to the Supervisory Inspectorate, where she conducted on-site inspections for thirteen years, primarily leading examinations of complex or vulnerable intermediaries, including asset quality reviews and validation of internal models. During this period, she was entrusted with supporting resolution procedures and led international technical cooperation initiatives with non-European countries. Following the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), she carried out inspection assignments on behalf of the European Central Bank (ECB), including in cross-border contexts.

In 2016, she joined the ECB as Head of Section, leading the unit responsible for overseeing the supervisory frameworks of nine National Competent Authorities (NCAs), including Italy. She managed a wide team comprising internal staff and national experts tasked with, inter alia, conducting reviews of high-risk or high-impact LSIs, performing cross-market thematic analyses, benchmarking supervisory methodologies across jurisdictions, drafting ECB opinions on material supervisory decisions and procedures of the NCAs, and conducting preliminary assessments in crisis management procedures for banks. She also led various projects of methodological and organizational nature, with a specific focus on process streamlining and talent development.

Since 2020, she has served as Deputy Head of the Supervisory Inspectorate at Banca d'Italia, and in July 2025, she assumed the role of Head of the Inspectorate. She represents Banca d'Italia within the Centralised On-site Inspection Network, the forum for coordination among the heads of inspection functions of the authorities participating in the SSM.

She has delivered numerous training and outreach initiatives in both domestic and international institutional settings.