Keywords: financial crisis, loans to customers, credit quality, bank size, intermediation model.
This paper, based on financial statement data from about 500 Italian banks in the
period between 2006 and 2010, analyses the loans to customers development in Italy by bank size. The research focuses on its evolution over time and on the quality of credit
exposures. The aim is to assess the lending policies adopted by Italian banks during the
recent financial crisis, by linking the resulting differences also to the bank size and to
the characteristics of the intermediation model adopted. The analysis shows that to the
heterogeneity emerged in the loans to customers development and in the deterioration
of its quality correspond significant differences in the business model in terms of orientation
to the funding-lending credit intermediation activity with customers.