Il factoring market continues to grow in Italy, with the sector estimating a turnover growth of +2,50% in the first quarter of 2026 and an overall increase of +3,96% at the end of the year. This is what emerges from the latest edition of the FOREfact Report, released by Assifact, which highlights how factoring confirms itself as "a essential component of business financing and to Italian production chains".
The forecasts—based on a business and prospective survey conducted among industry operators—reinforce the idea of "a solid sector, capable of orderly growth, supporting companies' working capital while maintaining a low risk profile," explain Assifact experts. According to them, these signals are also confirmed by the research "Value, competitiveness, and risk of factoring. The role of regulation," presented Wednesday at a conference organized by SDA Bocconi and sponsored by Assifact, focusing on thesimplification of the rules and on European supervision.
Assifact: "Simplification frees up resources for businesses."
“Regulatory simplification applied to factoring frees up financial resources for businesses, maintaining the stability of the financial system,” emphasized Alessandro Carretta, Secretary General of Assifact, during the conference. As Stefano Cappiello (Mef) also pointed out, “simplification does not necessarily entail deregulation and, in any case, must be achieved while safeguarding the balance between stability and efficiency of the financial system.”
At the heart of the debate are also the new guidelines on the definition of default proposed by the EBA, which recognize the specificities of factoring and propose extending the "technical past due" period from 30 to 90 days.
Fewer and fewer bad debts and defaults in the period 2015-2024
The research by SDA Bocconi shows that in the period 2015-2024 the most critical components of impaired exposures in factoring they are recording an overall favourable trend: bad debts are progressively decreasing from 1,18% in 2015 to around 0,5% in 2024, while the defaults Probable loans fell below 0,3% (from 1,59%). A significant portion of loans classified as past due/impaired returned to performing status or were collected, without being classified in more serious risk categories. Reclassifications to "bad debt" were marginal, confirming the predominantly temporary nature of many delinquencies.
Furthermore, in this sector, payment delays "are largely attributable to administrative and procedural issues—complexity of the accounts payable cycle, fragmentation of institutions, staff shortages—rather than actual financial difficulties."
Only 6,1% of municipalities are in crisis
It is no coincidence that the study highlights how only a limited share of local authorities (6,1% of the 7.896 existing municipalities as of December 31, 2024) is in a situation of full-blown crisis, while credit risk remains structurally low, even in the most critical cases, since the institutions continue to provide essential public services.
The research also hypothesizes a world without factoring. “We estimated that it would generate an annual liquidity requirement of approximately 200 billion”, explains Paola Schwizer, professor and coordinator of the research.
