Compared to Germany, the gross income of Italian banks is relatively large, but so are their operating costs (Figure 3). In both countries, the two time series show a negative trend, but in Italy the decrease in costs more than compensates the decrease in gross in- come. The negative trend in Italy’s gross income is driven by its shrinking interest income (Fig- ure 4), a trend also observed in many other European countries. However, this effect was countered by a marked increase in non-interest income. This suggests that the Italian banking reforms fostered the banks’ non-interest activities. However, this has more to do with the lifting of banking.
