Understanding households’ bank bond holdings

Abstract Using unique data on Italian households from 2011 to 2015, we examine how investor demand-side and bank supply-side characteristics relate to households’ holdings of bonds issued by their own bank. Households with a higher concentration of own bank bonds tend to have a lower education level, a shorter investment horizon, and less wealth. Controlling for investment and investor attributes, households exhibit high bank bond concentration when the issuing bank has high funding needs, low profitability, or a high branch market share. Furthermore, we show that a buy-and-hold strategy on bank bonds yields lower returns than one on government bonds over the same period. These findings offer insights into retail bond issuance, an important source of funding for banks in times of market stress.