Lending to business is up, credit risk is approaching pre-recession levels, customer funding remains a strength, and the real estate sector is booming thanks to better bank credit conditions and increased demand. Bank profitability in Italy remains lower than the price of capital, but it's improving steadily. And the essential restructuring of the Italian banking sector continues.

The top player in our top 20 Italian financial businesses list is a foreigner, the banking giant Deutsche Bank S.P.A. Their 3,330 or so staff helped generate an eye-watering revenue of 877,506,218.00 Euros in 2017. Atradius Credit Insurance N.V landed a massive 2017 revenue of 284,955,000.00 Euros, and Sirca Holdings managed to make 97,377,749.00 Euros revenue in 2017.