On 31 March 2025, the Ordinary Meeting of Shareholders approved Banca d’Italia's Annual Accounts for 2024. The balance sheet shrank by €149 billion from last year, to €1,104 billion. On the asset side, assets held for monetary policy purposes declined in both the refinancing operations for credit institutions component and the securities component. On the liability side, there was a decline mainly in the Bank's negative TARGET balance and in deposits held by credit institutions.
The primary goal of the Eurosystem is to maintain price stability, not to generate a profit. Monetary policy decisions are taken to fulfil this mandate, even though this could temporarily result in a reduction in the financial results reported by the individual central banks.
This is what occurred in 2024, which ended with a gross loss for the second year in a row (€7,319 million compared with €7,125 million in 2023). As in the previous year, this result was mainly due to a higher average rate of remuneration on liabilities denominated in euro (e.g. credit institutions' deposits) than on assets denominated in euro, which are largely fixed-rate and longer-term assets (especially securities held for monetary policy purposes). More specifically, net interest income was negative by €4,241 million (with an improvement of €541 million compared with 2023) and the net result of pooling monetary income was negative by €1,876 million (with a deterioration of €737 million compared with 2023).
In recent years, thanks to a particularly high level of profits, Banca d'Italia set aside significant financial resources to strengthen its financial buffers and deal with any losses arising from the materialization of risks. Part of these funds was used to cover the gross losses for 2023 and 2024. In 2024, €5,800 million were released from the general risk provision, which decreased from €29,614 million to €23,814 million. Nevertheless, given the reduction in risks due to the downsizing of the balance sheet and a positive income outlook as early as 2025 according to market expectations for interest rates, the current level of financial buffers continues to provide an adequate degree of risk coverage.
Taking into account the positive contribution of €2,363 million from the carryforward of the tax loss for 2024 - which will enable the Bank to pay lower taxes in the future - the financial year 2024 closes with a net profit of €844 million (€815 million in 2023).
The dividend to the Shareholders is €200 million, while the remainder (€644 million) is allocated to the State. Under the current dividend policy, the Shareholders will therefore receive a total of €340 million, equal to the amounts paid in recent years, thanks to the release of €140 million from the special item for stabilizing dividends, created by resolution of the Ordinary Meeting of Shareholders of 31 March 2017. This brings the special item to zero. Taking into account the supplemental dividend paid out of the special item, the total amount actually allocated to the Shareholders over the last five years was €1,633 million.
Over the same five-year period, the profits transferred to the State amounted to €14,406 million; including current taxes (€3,361 million), the total amount transferred to the State was €17,767 million.
