It gets even worse access to credit for small and medium-sized enterprises in the Eurozone. In the second quarter, the share of companies that perceived a worsening of the situation rose to 22%, compared to 20% in the previous three months. And parallel it is increased from 13 to 15% the percentage of rejection of requests for funding. These are the most relevant figures of the latest quarterly survey conducted by European Central Bank.
The share of companies that identifies access to finance as the most serious problem is also growing (from 17 to 18%). In the same period, however, the percentage of companies that need external financing decreased (from 8 to 5%).
The banking system remains by far the largest supply channel for loans to SMEs (74%), both through loans (33%) and credit lines (41%).
The net share of firms reporting by declines in turnover rose to 10%, against 2% in the previous quarter. As for the to evaluate, the share of firms with declining data has risen to 34%, up from 27% in the previous three months.
The monitoring was carried out by the ECB, with the collaboration of research institutes, between 3 September and 11 October, involving a sample of 7.514 SMEs in the euro area, which in 93% of cases have fewer than 250 employees. 1.000 Italian companies were interviewed.
