Savings, fears dominate among Italians. But it’s good for Italian government bonds

Caution, worry, anxiety. These items are among the main emotions that Italians associate with saving nowadays – as well as a more reassuring “sense of security” but only in third position. For goodness sake, we remain a population of ants but as Istat data on family budgets have recently shown, putting something aside is increasingly complicated.

The trend emerged from fifth Assogestioni-Censis Report presented at the Salone del Risparmio. The analysis shows that savings remain one “invincible habit” which involves 76.7% of Italians save, in all social groups. The percentages remain practically in line between the various areas (from 77.3% in the North-West to 75.7% in the South and Islands) but what changes is “obviously the intensity of the creation of savings: 39.3% of Italians save a maximum of 5% of their annual income, 33.2% between 6% and 15%, 17.2% between 15% and 20%, 10.3% over 20%” .

As we said, concern marks this historical phase, inversely proportional to income: savers with low incomes (40.7%) are more worried than those with high incomes (18.9%). The fear of recording losses is transversal, and high at 76.7% of savers. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East but also climate change dominate these fears.

“Global events – we read – reinforce savers’ uncertainty: 45.7%, thinking about the near future of savings, declared themselves uncertain, 34.3% pessimistic, only 20.0% optimistic”.

Among the data there is one that will please the government, which is trying to replenish the hard core of domestic savers. In fact, the crisis leads savers to think that it is better to choose Italian financial instruments. In 48.6% of cases, we end up accepting lower returns to buy the Italian flag. And in fact public securities are rewarded: among savers ready to invest in financial instruments, 41.3% would like to do so in government bonds, 37.7% in mutual investment funds, 28.3% in postal bonds savings, 26.8% in bonds, 23.9% in insurance policies.

Giorgio De Rita, General Secretary of Censis, underlined precisely this “change in the destination of savings”, moreover to the detriment of cash and liquidity which were instead rewarded in the pre-Covid era. “The observatory photographs the understandable apprehension of savers” added Fabio Galli, General Director of Assogestioni. «The answer to complex scenarios, however, cannot be just a entrenchment in the immobility of the current account. The 46.9% of savers who invest or want to invest in mutual funds is the best testimony to the results achieved by the industry in 40 years of activity”.