According to the Bank of Italy there were 439 banks in Italy in 2022 down from 684 in 2013. [1]
GDP of USA and Italy: 26.95 and 2.19 trillion dollars. [2]
GDP/banks (if it makes any sense but bear with me) : 26.95/9000 = 0.0029 and 2.19/439 = 0.0049
So yes, money per bank is less in the USA but only by a factor of 2. It's in the same order of magnitude. It's also a much larger and sparse country (at least in some areas) so I would expect more fragmentation and redundancies in those markets where you need to be physically close to customers. Banking is among them IMHO
It isn’t, but I don’t think the parent comment is trying to use it like that - they’re going for “how many banks are needed to support an economy”. Otherwise deposits per bank or perhaps assets (loans etc) per bank would be much better choices.
GDP of USA and Italy: 26.95 and 2.19 trillion dollars. [2]
GDP/banks (if it makes any sense but bear with me) : 26.95/9000 = 0.0029 and 2.19/439 = 0.0049
So yes, money per bank is less in the USA but only by a factor of 2. It's in the same order of magnitude. It's also a much larger and sparse country (at least in some areas) so I would expect more fragmentation and redundancies in those markets where you need to be physically close to customers. Banking is among them IMHO
[1] https://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/banche-istfin/2023...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...