Great success for state-guaranteed loans. In one month and 10 days, between March 17 and April 27, the Fund for SMEs received 38.921 applications for loan guarantees in favor of businesses, artisans, the self-employed and professionals. This was announced by Stefano Cappiello, General Manager of the Banking and Financial System of the Ministry of Economy, during a hearing before the Banks Commission, underlining that the questions "gave an amount of 3,6 billion euros of financing, of which approx 450 million euro for the 20.835 transactions referring to loans of up to 25.000 thousand euros, accessible for less than a week at the date of the survey".
Predictably, the questions of loans up to 25 thousand euros (100% guaranteed and without the need for a prior creditworthiness assessment) took off: last week there were only 5, while “yesterday in the update conference call, the number had already risen to 30 questions – added Cappiello – In a few days there was a surge".
In general, according to the Treasury executive, the anti-crisis measures for households and businesses “are bearing tangible results, although it cannot be denied that there have been malfunctions. But it must be kept in mind that the dimension of the phenomenon is enormous. This leads us to believe that a certain number of cases of malfunction or anomaly which must be corrected immediately are physiological, but which, if examined in relation to the requests, would seem to settle on low percentages. Without wanting to diminish the importance of doing more”.
Cappiello also said that “the safeguard measures adopted to counter the epidemic have inevitably led to a sharp contraction in economic and productive activity. This is leading to a significant erosion of the income of households and businesses, on the one hand jeopardizing their ability to meet previous financial commitments and, on the other, introducing the risk that access to new financing will be prevented or made difficult ”.
