20% of Spanish companies has suffered significant defaults during the past year, which represents a deterioration of four points compared to the levels of impact of delinquency a year ago. This is one of the most relevant data that emerges from the spring wave of the Credit Risk Management Study in Spain, promoted by Crédito y Caución and Iberinform.
85% of Spanish companies perceive the impact of the economic environment in the credit risk of its commercial portfolio. What events are significantly deteriorating payment behavior and the solvency levels of customer portfolios?
One of the novelties of 2023 is the disturbance caused by the tightening of monetary policies of central banks: the increase in financial costs (indicated by 43% of companies) becomes the third destabilizing factor of commercial credit risk, when a year ago it was irrelevant. The overall increase in inflation (indicated by 67% of companies), followed by energy costs (57%) remain the main destabilizing factors for credit risk in 2023.
The evolution of input prices is critical for the deterioration of payments and solvency, since companies pass on part of these increases against their margins by not transferring them directly to their final prices and also face falls in demand from families. Problems in the supply chain (cited by 31% of companies) and geopolitical tensions (21%) are also relevant.
Despite this context of deteriorating credit risk confirmed by the study, only 9% of the productive fabric has registered a decrease in your sales, compared to 77% who have registered some kind of growth. The companies show their confidence that they will be able to maintain this dynamic in 2023. It stands out very positively that 57% of them expect their billing levels to continue rising, compared to a meager 13% who expect this year to be worse than the previous one in terms of from income.
