(Finance) – “Unfortunately, the slowdown in bank loans to businesses recorded in July is not surprising. A slowdown which, in this specific ranking – according to a report published today by the Sole 24 Ore – places our country in last position among the In fact, this is not an isolated episode, but – as also highlighted by numerous analyzes by the Bank of Italy – a real trend that impacts mainly on smaller companies, considered structurally more risky by the banking system, because they are more difficult to evaluate through automatic scoring based on databases, according to a note by Confcommercio-Imprese for Italy.
“L’increase in interest rates wanted by the ECB to counter the inflationary phenomenon – continues the note – it acts on the side of the demand for bank loans by businesses. But we also need to ask ourselves about the compatibility of the banking system model – which has established itself in Italy under the impetus of European regulation – with that of the widespread micro and small enterprise that characterizes our entrepreneurial system. A model that makes its own allocation choices through mostly ‘algorithmic’ tools and logics that standardize and homogenize. Our entrepreneurial system, on the other hand, needs a banking and financial ecosystem capable of understanding its peculiarities”.
With regard to the ongoing comparison on the review of the SME Guarantee Fund, Confcommercio therefore provided its contribution with the intention of bringing the financial system and the real economy back into line. And this – explains the note – restoring the focus of the Fund’s intervention on smaller companies – those most affected by credit rationing – and directing resources towards a real overall increase in credit disbursed to companies.
“They are useful, then,” he underlines Confcommerce – choices that stimulate the banking system to finance riskier companies which, under market conditions, would require more provisions than safer ones”.
“Therefore – concludes Confcommercio – it is not so much a matter of acting on the side of reducing the number of current risk ranges – which could also generate the effect of channeling the State guarantee even more towards companies with better ratings, further penalizing the beneficiaries who fall within the intermediate brackets – rather than remodulate aid intensities in favor of ‘rationed but deserving’ businesses. This would also facilitate the attraction of financial resources of different origins, favoring the integration and rationalization of different channels of access to credit”.