After two years of rises, interest rates are rapidly falling, and the descent will be decisive in restarting banks' lending to households. The turnaround will also be made possible thanks to the positive results achieved by the Italian banking sector in recent years: the €16.4 billion in profits in 2021, €25.4 billion in 2022, and €40.6 billion in 2023 could be added, according to preliminary estimates, to another €50.2 billion in 2024, for a total, over four years, of more than €132 billion in profits. These are records accompanied by reinforcements and improvements in capital ratios that will better enable banks to support the real economy. After a period of continuous increases, peaking at the end of 2023, the rates charged by lenders are gradually decreasing. In the mortgage sector, for example, the interest rate has fallen from a high of 4.3% in November 2023 to 3.2% in September 2024. This is according to research by the Unimpresa Study Center, which also found that consumer credit, although still high, has dropped from a peak of more than 9% to an average of 8.7%, while personal loans have fallen from a high of 7.2% to the current 5.6%.