AGCM

The Italian Competition Authority has initiated three preliminary investigations for allegedly unfair commercial practices with regard to three banking institutions: Banca Nazionale del Lavoro S.p.A., Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. and UniCredit S.p.A.

The proceedings are intended to ascertain whether the three banks have acted in violation of the Consumer Code in relation to the practice of compound interest.

In particular, until the entry into force of Art. 17-bis of Legislative Decree no. 18/2016, which reiterated the prohibition of compound interest without the prior authorisation of the client, these banks allegedly continued to apply compound interest, despite the express prohibition under the Stability Law of 2014. After the reform in 2016, the three banking institutions allegedly adopted aggressive methods to induce their consumer/clients to authorise the debiting.

In order to verify these allegations, today, the Authority officers carried out a series of inspections at the BNL, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit headquarters, with the support of the Special Antitrust Unit of Guardia di Finanza.

Rome, 11 April 2017