A market that wants to grow, driven by innovation and government subsidies, but not supported by the world of credit. This is what emerges from the November edition of Market Watch PMI, the Banca IFIS Impresa observatory which photographs the situation of Italian companies.
The report shows a strong trend towards innovation: in the first 9 months of 2017, companies with the requirements to register in the lists of innovative Start-ups and SMEs grew by 6% and 14% respectively.
The stock of bank loans has dropped by around €160 billion since 2008, while firms make greater use of specialized credit, such as factoring and bonds (provided by specialized non-bank players).
Below are the main considerations deriving from the analysis of the third quarter of 2017:
- Factoring: turnover up 10%, albeit slower than in the first half of 1;
- loans: in the third quarter of 2017 the disbursements of bank loans show the lowest figure for 5 years now. Amounts in both the short and medium-long term decreased, -€21 and -€11 billion in the last quarter of 2017. From 2008 to today, €85 billion less loans to businesses have been recorded. Specialized loans grew by €75 billion mainly due to the development of the weight of bond products (13,3% compared to 5,9% in 2008) and factoring (5,1% compared to 3,1% in 2008);
- Facilitated finance: the adherence of SMEs to subsidized finance instruments continues.
- PMI Guarantee Fund: in the first 9 months the loans received exceeded i € 13 billion (+6% compared to the same period of 2016), with 82% of the applications accepted belonging to the industry (42%) and commerce (40%) sectors;
- New Sabatini TER: supported the funding of almost 20.000 SMEs from the start of the program. Preponderant use by small (46%) and micro enterprises (35%). As of September 2017, 79% of available funds have been booked;
- Leasing: volumes reach altitude € 18,9 billion, with a strong boost to growth from the NLT (+18%), instrumental (+10,1%) and industrial vehicles (+7,6%) finance lease segments.
