The structure of the Italian banking system at the beginning of the 1990s can be traced back to the regulations introduced after the Great Depression, most importantly the forma- tion of the IRI (Instituto per la Ricostruzione industriale), which was a public holding company containing the three largest private banks (Banca Commerciale Italiana, Credito Italiano, and Banca di Roma) and a large number of public banks (Körnert and Nolte 2005: footnote 3). Many of the banks that were nationalized at that time were still publicly owned almost 60 years later. One of the most prominent examples is Credito Italiano, which was privatized in 1993 and is now.
