The average payment time for commercial debts in Italy is 229 days, over seven and a half months. This is the first result that emerges from the surveys of the Dap service, Database of Payment Habits, created by Assifact (Italian Factoring Association) in collaboration with Cribis D&B.
The figure refers to both private companies and the Public Administration. There are many geographical differences: the North-East records average payment times of around 150 days (five months) while for the South the average times exceed 300 days (10 months). Restricting the objective to the typical economic activities of the Public Administration, the average payment times are higher than 270/360 days (9/12 months).
On the basis of the latest data available from the Bank of Italy, relating to the end of 2011, trade receivables by companies amount to approximately 590 billion euros (equal to a share of almost 39% of total company assets), a volume of which factoring represents about 10%.
