Parliament to investigate bank failures

(ANSA) - Rome, December 22 - Premier Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD) said Tuesday it will present a bill to set up a parliamentary commission to investigate Italy's banking system. The move comes amid a furore over bondholders who lost money in four small lenders recently rescued by the government. The 3.6-billion-euro rescue, financed by healthy Italian banks, saved jobs and protected account holders, but shares and bonds in the four lenders are now worthless. A 68-year-old pensioner hung himself after reportedly losing over 100,000 euros he had invested in now worthless Banca Etruria bonds, one of the four troubled lender rescued via a government decree in November along with Banca delle Marche, Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia di Chieti and Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara. The government faces a no-confidence motion in January from the center-right opposition over its handling of the four failed banks.
    Also on Tuesday, roughly 200 former clients of the failed and rescued banks who lost their savings protested outside the headquarters of the Bank of Italy to demand full reimbursement and the resignation of Governor Ignazio Visco for alleged lack of oversight.
    A group representing the victims of the bail-out also sent a letter to Pope Francis asking for his intervention on Tuesday.
    "We are confident that you, dear Pope Francis, will help us explain to our blind and deaf governors, to technocrats...that our dignity cannot be restored through the paradigm of the arbiter entrusted to fig leaves, but through full compensation for our expropriated assets," wrote the committee coordinated by consumers association Adusbef-Federconsumatori. The government has said it could not do any more because of EU rules against State aid. But it has put Italy's anti-corruption agency in charge of arbitrating claims for compensation for small investors, who say they were deceived by the banks about the risks of the subordinated bonds they were advised to purchase.