The Role of Information Systems to Prevent the Impairment of Asset Quality in the Banks Balance Sheet. An Italian Case Study

Non-performing loans (NPLs) that turn into bad debt or dead loans are a problem for Italy's banking industry. To some extent, this is unavoidable. Previously, Italian banks have given the impression that their risk controls for loans are unsuccessful because the banks own a disproportionate amount of NPLs. These banks are now paying more attention to the management of these risks. (Vaidya, 2013). “Information Technology (IT) is a critical component in creating value in banking industries. It provides decision makers with an efficient means to report information about risk, profitability and precedent conditions for loan” (Huaiqing et al 2002). The purpose of this work is, through a case study, to highlight the possibility of Information System (IS) to support a new integrated process of credit monitoring to prevent the impairment of asset quality, providing increasingly reliable data, availability on demand and real-time information, and facilitating the creation of the development of global knowledge and new reporting tools, as well as integration of areas of risk and business operating processes. The findings show that the system implemented in a small Italian bank provides enough information on credit monitoring activities to improve the quality of the loans held in portfolio.