Even if there are signs of recovery, the Italian situation remains critical, particularly as regards the disbursement of credit to SMEs. Yet one of the "tastiest fruits" of this crisis has been the dialogue that has been instilled with banks: over the next few months it will be important to "take a close look at ourselves, reason according to real numbers". These were the words of Cesare Fumagalli, secretary general of Confartigianato, at the presentation of a Unicredit-Confartigianato survey recently held in Bologna. A similar line taken by Roberto Nicastro, Deputy CEO Unicredit: "The crisis is a common enemy and we have managed to work together much more".

According to the survey, 2009 was a complex year for artisanal businesses (production -19.4% second quarter 2009 compared to 2008, orders -18.3%, exports -12.7% and turnover -18.4%). The crisis has seen the Italian GDP come up almost 110 billion euro short on the forecasts for 2009; in the third quarter of 2009 there was a 3% fall in employment rates among the self-employed (178,000 units) and a 1.9% drop (330,000 units) in the number of employed jobs. In the first nine months of 2009, the manufacturing industry lost 108,000 jobs, whilst the crafts industry was hit twice as hard, suffering a 5.3% fall (38,500 fewer jobs).

From the study it emerges that, between September 2008 and September 2009, the number of loans given to small artisanal businesses (less than 20 employees) dropped by 3.4%, but that overall the amount of loans disbursed remained unchanged. Whereas between 2008 and 2009 there was a slowdown in bank loans for the production industry, more recent data indicates that small businesses and individuals are beginning to enjoy from increased credit: in December there was a 1.9% increase in loans compared with the same period in 2008.

According to Roberto Nicastro "the road to recovery includes the upturn of exports, construction and tourism, all sectors where crafts play a key role. Faced with a crisis that also hit the bank sector very hard, Unicredit rolled up its sleeves and adopted a series of initiatives to provide concrete solutions to the liquidity crisis in companies". "Altogether – he added – in 2009 our retail banks provided small businesses with 10.6 billion euro of short and mid-long term loans, for a total of 166,000 contracts, with a request acceptance rate of 80%".

According to the Unicredit survey on 6000 business professionals, despite the crisis, confidence "has not collapsed". "Whereas the Unicredit index connected with the optimism of business professionals with regards to the next 12 months returns a figure of 110, the figure referring to the previous 12 months was 77, a 33 point difference".

"Small business owners - explained Cesare Fumagalli – have not lost their appetite for investing in their companies. The initiative with Unicredit is an important example of the commitment to building virtuous relations between the banking system and that of small businesses, with the aim of facilitating the correct valuation of creditworthiness, enhancing the role of the credit guarantee consortia".

In his speech, Nicastro placed particular focus on the disbursement of loans to companies by credit institutes. The debate on Basel 2 and subsequent disputes – he explained – are used to support contrasting views. "It is argued that bank credit is given on the basis of financial statements. Then people say that in late 2008/early 2009 there was a reduction in bank credit. The two things - argued Nicastro – are in no way compatible because at the end of 2008 the financial statements were still those of 2007, i.e. positive. According to this reasoning, however, the credit crunch that took place should never have happened."
This means that, in reality, credit in Italy is not given according to the financial statements, and this perfectly logical because in 50% of cases financial statements are not truly representative of the reality within a company. In companies with turnover of under 3 million euro, the importance of the financial statements when evaluating a credit request counts for less than 20%.