Small and medium-sized enterprises in the Eurozone said that financing conditions deteriorated further in the beginning of the year, but at a slower rate than in the previous months, results from a survey by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission showed Friday.
In the survey, designed to assess the views of small businesses on the availability of finance in the currency bloc, 11 percent of respondents said that their loan applications were rejected by banks. The results, however, indicates an improvement from the previous survey when 15 percent of the firms faced rejection.
However, financing conditions across the region remained significantly divergent. Many member countries, including Greece and Austria, reported a deterioration in the success of bank loan applications, while Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal recorded an improvement.
The share of small businesses who said they received only a limited amount of the loan they applied for was 10 percent, unchanged from six months earlier.
While most of the surveyed firms said financing needs for bank loans have increased, a small percentage said access to finance was their main problem.
A separate report from the ECB showed that loans provided to the euro area private sector declined 0.8 percent in March from the prior year. The annual growth rate of loans provided to households also slowed marginally.
For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com
Economic News
What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
April 24, 2026 15:15 ET Economics news flow was relatively light this week even as the conflict in the Middle East continued, raising concerns for policymakers. In the U.S., spending data, initial jobless claims and pending home sales were the highlights. Business confidence in the biggest euro area economy was in focus in Europe. Inflation data from Japan gained attention in Asia.