Monday, November 14, 2011

More than 70 Billion Dutch Euros Outstanding in Italy


More than 70 Billion Dutch Euros Outstanding in Italy

AMSTERDAM, 11/11/11 - Dutch banks, insurers and pension funds have 71 billion euros outstanding in Italy, according to the latest figures.

The Italian government is the biggest debtor for the Dutch financial sector, at over 40 billion euros. Then comes the private sector (nearly 24 billion) and the Italian banks (6.7 billion), according to figures from the Dutch central bank (DNB) at end-June this year.

It is likely that the pension funds in particular have large holdings of Italian state bonds. "Many pension funds follow certain standards for fixed-interest securities," explains ABN Amro economist Han de Jong. "And the Italian bond market is the biggest in Europe because they now simply have the biggest debt in Europe at 1,900 billion euros. So it is logical that pension funds would have large holdings of Italian bonds in their portfolios."

The Netherlands' biggest pension fund ABP, the fund for civil servants, says it had about 10 billion euros in Italian state bonds at end-2010. It does not wish to give more recent figures.

Banking and insurance group ING had 3.4 billion euros in Italian debt paper at the end of the third quarter. Rabobank had about 2 billion euros outstanding in Italy at end-June, and ABN Amro, 1.3 billion.

http://www.nisnews.nl/public/111111_2.htm

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