Bancaria has been the monthly journal of the Italian Banking Association since 1921 and is published by ABIServizi-Bancaria Editrice.
Bancaria’s objective is to bridge the gap between academic research and the banking and financial profession.
Today, Bancaria aims to strengthen its role as a point of reference for the Italian academic community, in line with emerging trends in international research, while reaffirming the journal’s historic role as a bridge between research and the banking and financial profession. But how did it arrive at this choice after more than 100 years of publication?
Bancaria from 1921 to 1943
In March 1920, just a few months after the Italian Banking Association was founded in April 1919, the Bollettino economico-finanziario (Economic and Financial Bulletin) was launched. This monthly publication was renamed Rivista Bancaria in January 1921. From the outset, the ABI’s intention was clear: to promote a journal with a dual scientific purpose, combining significant and incisive studies with the objectives of informing and training banking professionals, analysing regulation and fostering international debate—aims that have always formed part of the ABI’s mission.
Under the joint leadership of economist Attilio Cabiati for financial matters and ABI Director General Giuseppe Bianchini for legal matters, the journal benefited from the regular editorial contribution of the young Raffaele Mattioli—who wrote no fewer than 80 notes between 1919 and 1921—and published articles by Einaudi, Fanno, Bresciani Turroni, Pantaleoni, Amoroso, Demaria, Mortara, Carnelutti, Vassalli and many others, including leading foreign economists.
For much of the twenty-year period, the journal sought to make its lively and independent voice heard in the cultural debate of the time, despite an increasingly restrictive political climate.
Bancaria from the Post-war Period to the Present Day
In 1945, a Bollettino d’informazioni (Information Bulletin) was re-established. It subsequently became the fortnightly Rassegna economico-finanziaria, then the Rassegna dell’Associazione Bancaria Italiana, and finally, in 1949, the journal took the name Bancaria and became a monthly publication, driven by ABI President Sergio Siglienti and Director General Gian Franco Calabresi. Under Calabresi’s leadership—he remained editor until 1985—Bancaria soon became Italy’s most widely circulated financial journal, featuring contributions from the country’s most distinguished scholars and economists.
The articles were accompanied by numerous thematic sections examining political and economic issues (Rassegna dei problemi italiani), economic and monetary developments alongside legal matters, case law, the life of banks (Notiziario delle aziende), as well as a bibliographical review and numerous book reviews. This extensive structure of regular sections reflected the journal’s multidisciplinary approach and its objective of providing information services to member institutions.
In more recent years too, Bancaria has continued to combine quality with readability, scientific rigour with a contribution to financial innovation and operational practices, and economic and management issues with legal matters. It balances the value of belonging to the ABI with the journal’s editorial independence, addressing a broad and diverse audience with content that is accessible to non-specialists as well.
