The CEO of Italy's second-largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, hit back at analysts' suggestions that the country's economy was in an "Armageddon scenario" during an earnings call for the third quarter.

Carlo Messina said during the Nov. 6 call that fundamentals of the Italian economy are "solid" and that he expects GDP growth of a "minimum" of 1% in 2019.

"Italy is a very strong country," he said. "I am the CEO of a bank ... And my duty is to give reality, not to give [a] perception or Armageddon scenario."

The Italian economy stalled in the third quarter, registering annualized growth of zero perecent growth compared with the second quarter.

Analysts at Scope Ratings cautioned in a Nov. 6 note that the Italian government's latest projections of GDP growth of 1.5%, 1.6% and 1.4% in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively, were "overly optimistic" on the basis of current economic weakness and market stresses.

Messina's comments come against the backdrop of an ongoing row between Italy's populist coalition government and the EU over its budget, which includes promises of greater public spending and would increase the deficit to as much as 2.4% of GDP. The EU asked the Italian government in October to redraft the budget.

Intesa reported an increase in net income to €833 million for the third quarter, up from €650 million a year previously. Net income for the nine months to the end of September was €3.01 billion, up from €2.39 billion in the comparable period last year, which Messina said was the best performance that the bank had seen "since 2008."

Messina said the bank had emerged as a "clear winner" in the European Banking Authority's stress test, the results of which were published on Nov. 2.

Intesa fared the best out of its Italian peers in the test, with its fully loaded common equity Tier 1 ratio falling to 9.66% in 2020 in an adverse scenario modeled by the EBA.

The pro forma fully loaded and phased-in common equity Tier 1 ratios at the end of the third quarter were 13.7% and 13.5%, respectively.