The sovereign debt crisis, which hit Italy hard, affected first banks’ liquidity and secondly the cost and volumes of funding and loans. Italian banks are now facing the effects of the double-dip recession, which has significantly weakened businesses and households, their key customer segments, and their borrowing and saving capability, with an increasing rate of non-performing loans. This situation is impairing the sustainability of the «traditional» intermediation model and means that banks must introduce strategies for significantly modifying the banking business model they adopt
