Bank loans to small and micro enterprises continue to decrease. Between 2021 and 2022, outstanding loans to companies with fewer than 20 employees fell by 5,3 billion euros (-4,3 percent). The total stock of loans disbursed to this segment of companies increased from 124 to 118,7 billion euro. We are talking about the loans granted by credit institutions to very small businesses. An audience of micro-entrepreneurs made up mostly of merchants, small traders, artisans and self-employed workers. The elaboration was carried out by the CGIA Research Office.
• Banks are footing the bill too
It is not a trivial problem. These micro realities, traditionally undercapitalized and short on liquidity, have long been no longer commercially attractive to the banking system. Therefore, the credit crunch that has arisen - associated with the explosion of online commerce, the historic competition practiced by large retailers, the burden of taxes and fixed costs - has contributed to a significantly worrying decrease in the number of shops and stores proximity present in the country. A trail of closures that began a long time ago which, unfortunately, is turning against families, who see the quality of life in the places where they live worsening, but also against the institutions themselves, which have lost account holders and significant market shares.
• The risk of wear is growing
However, it would be wrong to accuse the banks of having "disinterested" in the people of VAT numbers. Unfortunately, in the last decade the world of credit has undergone many restrictions imposed by the European Central Bank on the issue of credit. These constraints have enormously increased the creditworthiness threshold, "removing" many small entrepreneurs from the official liquidity procurement channels. And among the latter, unfortunately, there are not even a few who have "fallen" into the net stretched by usurers; a phenomenon, that of "loan sharking", very "karst" and increasingly "controlled" by mafia-type criminal organizations which, in times of difficulty, are the only subjects who have large amounts of money ready to be placed on the market economic.
• Romagna is the area most penalized by the squeeze
Again between 2021 and 2022, the regions that suffered the most significant contractions were Veneto with -6,24 percent (equal to -821,2 million euros), Umbria with -6,49 per cent (-137,1 million), Friuli Venezia Giulia with -6,54 per cent (-177,8 million) and, in particular, Liguria with -7,12 per cent (-214,4 million euros). At the provincial level, however, the closure of the credit taps "hit", above all Savona with -7,92 per cent (-61,7 million euros), Venice with -7,93 per cent (-173,8 8,32 million) and Sondrio with -59,8 percent (-9,48 million). The realities most affected were two provinces of Romagna: Forlì-Cesena which saw a decrease in the flow of loans by 135,5 per cent (-10,36 million) and Ravenna with -135,2 per cent (-107 millions). Of the 0,10 Italian provinces monitored by the elaboration of the CGIA Research Office, only five present a result anticipated by the plus sign. They are: Biella (+0,14 per cent), Caltanissetta (+1,49), Sassari (+1,61), South Sardinia (+3,98) and Nuoro (+XNUMX).
• The negative trend started 10 years ago
However, the decline in bank loans to very small businesses is a phenomenon that began a decade ago and only stopped in the two-year period 2020-2021. This brief turnaround took place thanks to the Conte bis government which, in the aftermath of the outbreak of the pandemic, set up a public guarantee fund to promote liquidity for SMEs affected by the Covid emergency. The data are as follows: if as at 31 December 2011 performing loans to companies with fewer than 20 employees amounted to 171 billion (equal to 18,8 per cent of the total disbursed to Italian companies), we subsequently witnessed a vertical drop which stopped at the beginning of 2020 (€116,3 billion disbursed, equal to 18,1 per cent of the total). In the two-year period referred to above, the stock reversed sign and reached 124 billion at the end of 2021 (equal to 17,4 per cent of the total). In the last year, once the "push" effect attributable to the establishment of the public guarantee fund had subsided, loans began to fall again, reaching, as at 31 December 2022, the quota of 118,7 billion (equal to 16,9. XNUMX per cent of the total disbursed to businesses)
It should also be noted that if we analyze the trend of loans to very small businesses on a quarterly basis (compared to the same period of the previous year), even taking into account the securitized loans and the assignments other than securitisations, the reclassifications, the value adjustments made in the period and the exchange rate variations, the trend mirrors that which emerged in the Graph. 1. In other words, in the last 10 years only 7 quarters out of 40 monitored have presented a positive change.
