Italy minister says central bank could have supervised banks better

Testifying before parliament, Padoan said despite the oversight failings, the reappointment in October of Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco for a second term in office was aimed at providing stability to financial markets.

"We wanted to give a signal of stability while acknowledging that in specific cases supervision could perhaps have been done better," Visco told a special commission set up to look into the bank collapses.

(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, writing by Gavin Jones)