The bond was offered to retail investors in the past three days raising 863.3 million euros, one of the lowest take-up since this class of bonds was launched in 2012.

The previous issue, launched in May before a sell-off of Italian assets under an anti-austerity and anti-EU government began, raised 4.06 billion euros from small savers.

On that occasion institutional investors had requested 600 million euros of the bond in the first 45 minutes of it being offered.

Orders then picked up after a source said the Treasury would raise the real coupon and closed at 3.66 billion euros.