It is plausible to believe that the resources made available by the “Cura Italia”, the “Liquidity decree” and the “Italian Guarantee” program benefited above all the banks and companies that had already obtained a loan before the advent of Covid. The CGIA Research Office came to this hypothesis which, after analyzing the data on the loans provided by credit institutions to companies between the end of March - the period in which the aforementioned measures came into force - and last September 30th, “Reconstructed” a very different narrative from that illustrated, in particular, by the Conte government.
Mind you, the whole economic system has benefited from the application of these 3 measures, even if we cannot hide from the fact that the resources allocated to the companies affected by Covid have been, up to now, still insufficient.
What happened in these first 6 months? Against a volume of 94,7 billion euros of guaranteed loans disbursed by SACE to large companies and by the Guarantee Fund to SMEs, the total stock of bank loans to businesses has instead increased by only 32,5 billion euros . The coordinator of the Paolo Zabeo Studies Office declares:
“Why is it that only one third of the guarantees made available by the State through SACE and the Guarantee Fund, which by law had to cover almost all of the loans granted with these instruments, ended up in the pockets of entrepreneurs? The remaining two / thirds, or the other 62 billion, what happened to them? Were they stuck in the maze of ministerial bureaucracies or did they end up in the cavou of credit institutions? None of this. Part of the new guarantees went to fill the physiological drops in existing credit and to replace short-term loans with increases in medium-long term ones. It is also possible that the banking system used a part of these billions also to reduce its own risks, replacing the guarantees linked to the loans it had disbursed before the advent of these legislative changes. A conduct that has certainly favored the banks, which in so doing have eliminated the risks of incurring impaired loans, and in part also the companies, at least those that before March had open credit lines with the institutions ".
For some months, however, the CGIA has continued to denounce that despite the anti-Covid measures developed by the Conte government, the difficulty of accessing bank credit by very small companies risks worsening from 2021. The secretary of the CGIA Renato Mason emphasizes:
“As of January 1st, in fact, credit institutions will apply the new European rules on the definition of default. These innovations establish more restrictive criteria and methods than those adopted so far. Furthermore, banks are expected to define as defaulting one who has a consecutive arrears of more than 90 days, the amount of which is greater than both euro 100 and 1 per cent of the total exposures to the banking group. If both thresholds are exceeded, the report will be sent to the Central Risks of the Bank of Italy which, automatically, will label the entrepreneur as a bad payer, thus preventing him from having the help of any credit institution for a certain period of time. . A situation that risks affecting many VAT numbers that traditionally are short of liquidity and with great difficulty, especially at this moment, in respecting the repayment plans of their bank debts ".
This new definition of default will certainly push banks to behave very “prudently” towards customers. With the lowering of the overrun threshold, we will certainly see a surge in non-performing loans. To avoid the negative effects of NPLs, in fact, Brussels has imposed on banks the devaluation of unsecured risk loans in 3 years and in 7-9 years for those with collateral. It is clear that the application of these measures will induce many credit institutions to adopt an attitude of extreme caution in disbursing loans, to avoid having to incur losses in a few years. In short, a new credit squeeze is on the way for many SMEs.
With reference to the anti-Covid measures implemented by the Conte government which, we point out, should be exhausted by next 31 December, the hypothesis by the CGIA was developed by comparing the latest available data relating to bank loans to companies (as of 30 September 2020), with those disbursed by the operations guaranteed by SACE and by the Guarantee Fund for SMEs.
It should also be emphasized that the two structures just mentioned update their data with very short deadlines with respect to SACE. Through “Garanzia Italia”, up to 11 November, the applications submitted by large companies amounted to 896 and the volumes of guaranteed loans put in place by SACE reached 16,6 billion euros. As of November 19, again this month, 1.287.237 applications were received from the Guarantee Fund for SMEs, which “generated” 106 billion in loans. These latest figures also include mini loans up to 30 thousand euros which, on the other hand, recorded 991.721 applications, allowing the disbursement of 19,4 billion in loans.
Finally, it should be emphasized that since last March, our country is in first place in Europe for the quantity of guarantees in relation to GDP made available to the economic system. According to the latest data updated to 29 October by the Bruegel think tank, Italy paid 32,1 percent of GDP (i.e. 570 billion euros). The main European countries are followed by Germany (24,3 per cent of GDP), Belgium (21,9 per cent), the United Kingdom (15,4 per cent), France (14,2 per cent) and Spain (9,2 per cent).