Italian SMEs are facing ever-decreasing access to credit at ever-higher costs
Recent figures released by Confartigianato and reported by Quotidiano Nazionale and ANSA paint an alarming picture for Italian small and medium-sized enterprises. Between 2019 and March 2026, bank loans to SMEs plummeted by 34 billion euros, a fall of 25.9 per cent. This figure is particularly stark for craft businesses, where the decline reaches 39.3 per cent.
This is not merely a quantitative tightening. The cost of borrowing for these companies has become prohibitive, with a disparity that particularly penalises the South.
Whilst the average rate for non-financial businesses stands at 4.97 per cent, an SME in Sardinia may end up paying interest of up to 10.6 per cent, in Calabria 10.5 per cent, and in Basilicata, Sicily and Molise 9.8 per cent. This is a vicious circle which, as Confartigianato president Marco Granelli points out, “penalises the very heart of our productive system, reducing its capacity to invest, innovate and create jobs”.
The situation continued to worsen in the early months of 2026, with a further 4.3 per cent contraction in lending to small businesses in March. The sharpest declines in lending were recorded in Valle d’Aosta (-9.9 per cent), Marche (-7.1 per cent), Liguria (-6.6 per cent) and Tuscany (-6.4 per cent), whilst more moderate contractions were observed in Lazio (-2.3 per cent), Sicily (-2.4 per cent) and Puglia (-3.2 per cent). Against this backdrop, the traditional solutions advocated by Confartigianato, such as strengthening the Confidi and the new Artigiancassa, are certainly important but may not be sufficient to reverse the trend quickly.
And this is where an innovative solution comes into play – one that involves neither banks nor new loans, but instead makes use of existing commercial relationships between companies. We’re talking about to multilateral trade credit netting, a mechanism that allows cross-debts and receivables to be settled without any actual movement of money. This is precisely the idea behind Nexyzen (formerly Camera di Compensazione).
Nexyzen, through its algorithm, identifies this ‘cycle’ of debts and proposes a multilateral netting arrangement. The result? Debts are reduced by the smallest amount and companies are left with minimal outstanding balances to settle, freeing up immediate liquidity. There is no interest to pay, and no new debt is incurred. It is simply a matter of coordination, and the platform can be white-labelled to suit specific industrial ecosystems such as the automotive, agri-food, retail, manufacturing, textile and logistics sectors.
The benefits are clear, particularly in light of the credit crunch. Businesses gain immediate liquidity without having to wait for payment terms to elapse. The fee is a fraction of that charged for factoring and does not require a creditworthiness assessment. Unlike a bank loan, this arrangement does not increase the company’s debt, whilst reducing its reliance on the creditworthiness of individual customers. In a climate where banks are tightening the credit tap and borrowing is expensive, Nexyzen offers a smart solution that does not rely on external intervention.
Its benefits are twofold: on the one hand, it enables SMEs to free up valuable resources for investment and growth; on the other, it makes the entire system of commercial relations healthier and more efficient, preventing the kind of knock-on crises that can paralyse entire supply chains. As Riccardo Pagano, co-founder of Nexyzen, explains, the aim is “to provide businesses with an effective tool to offset debts and receivables securely, quickly and transparently”.
Whilst articles in Quotidiano Nazionale and ANSA describe an emergency that threatens to stifle Italy’s productive sector, Nexyzen presents itself as a concrete, readily available solution that transforms receivables into liquidity without going through a bank. In an era of 10 per cent interest rates and a 25 per cent drop in lending, perhaps it is time to look beyond bank credit and rediscover the value of cooperation between businesses. The liquidity is there; it is simply ‘tangled up’ in a web of cross-debts. Nexyzen has the technology to untangle it.
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