strengthening the measures falling within its own sphere of competence for the organization and corporate governance of banks. there has already been a significant improvement in the quality, composition and functioning of the boards of directors of italian 4 / 10 bis central bankers'speeches banks, but there are still plenty of opportunities for improvement, which must be exploited. the hiring of competent managers with different profiles in terms of age, gender, training, geographical provenance and duration of term must be actively encouraged. by stimulating debate and dialogue in decision - making processes, diversity within the management bodies can combat the risk of blinkered thinking and concentrations of power. in an increasingly competitive and complex world, this reinforces banks ’ capacity to pursue effective strategies. on the issue of gender diversity, the banking system ’ s response to the supervisory expectations published in 2015 has been unsatisfactory ; the number of women on boards of directors at numerous banks continues to be especially low and compares unfavourably with the other main european countries. recently issued provisions have therefore made the requirements more stringent, establishing shorter timelines for adapting to the minimum mandatory gender quotas on management and control bodies. the provisions favour a composition of boards capable of reaping the benefits that, including in risk management, can stem from greater diversity. in the short term, it can also provide an opportunity to achieve, through the renewal of the bodies, a lowering of the average age and duration of terms of the members. in calibrating the regulation, account was taken of the request by small banks for graduality in reaching the target quota, given the greater gap these banks must bridge. further non - binding guidance is aimed at increasing the efficacy of the role that, in practice, the less - represented gender can play on boards. the new provisions also act on other, no less important, fronts. they recall the centrality of issues of strategic importance, such as decisions on fintech, environmental, social and governance ( esg ) factors, and lending policies ; they require the adoption of ethical standards for all personnel ; they reinforce controls ; and they envisage the adoption of policies to manage dialogue between administrators and shareholders. cooperative credit groups to enable cooperative credit banks to continue to perform their critical role of financing small and medium - sized enterprises prudently and effectively, in 2016, the legislature chose to encourage the creation of banking groups that would bring together small banks throughout italy. contrary to what many, on more than one occasion, have charged, the

pierluigi ciocca : supervision : one or more institutions? remarks by mr pierluigi ciocca, deputy director general of the bank of italy, to the conference on “ the new structures of financial markets : how should supervision be organized? ” held in bologna, 4 may 2001. * * * introduction the question of the allocation of responsibilities in banking and financial supervision is not a purely economic question, nor can it be solved merely on the basis of economic theories. until quite recently milton friedman was the only great economist to have addressed the issue, and even then as part of the broader problem of money and its management. many other aspects are involved, however, including : • the “ legal experience ” of a country, and hence the constitutional and institutional framework within which the question is set ; • how supervision has been and is performed, in terms of the resources, reputations and independence of the institutions concerned ; • the opinion of the markets in the light of their changeable “ conventions ”. the foregoing considerations suggest that the question should be approached, if not pragmatically, at least with prudent humility. the subject does not offer academic recipes suited to every context. one may nonetheless have opinions, based on arguments that have been worked out to a greater or lesser extent. i shall set out my own here, in the most generalized form i can achieve. the international picture these considerations regarding method are matched by an empirical observation. in recent times there has been no clear tendency for any one solution to predominate. basically, there are three alternatives : extreme centralization ( rare ), extreme decentralization ( less rare ) and intermediate solutions ( the most common ). the united states has remained faithful to a division of responsibilities in which the types of body entrusted with supervision are highly diversified, with 6 for banking supervision1 ( with 357 local offices and around 15, 000 employees ) and another 6 for financial supervision2 ( covering markets, insurance companies and pension funds with 137 local offices and some 8, 000 employees ). in addition, it is necessary to consider the self - regulatory bodies of the 9 most important financial markets. the overlapping of powers is accepted, desired, in view of the “ dialectics ”, the “ competition ”, it ensures between the various institutions and because it avoids monopoly. the number of persons engaged in supervision is huge. in the banking field it is about fifteen times the figure for the bank of italy ( about 1