SMEs knock on the door of the office of the economic vice president, Nadia Calviño , to regret that the lines of financing with State guarantee launched through the ICO do not reach the companies that need it most in these moments of economic paralysis . And on this occasion, the request to the Government is accompanied by an internal survey carried out by the Cepyme employers that shows the failures that, in the opinion of these types of companies - which account for 99% of the country's business fabric - have the aid mechanism in place. launched by the Government.

The two main complaints from SMEs refer to the "bureaucracy and delay in processing" of these loans, granted by the different financial entities but guaranteed up to a maximum of 80% by the State. "The request for such financing is accompanied by the provision of a large volume of documentation, which is complex to provide in the current situation, especially for micro-companies with less than 10 workers," sources from Cepyme explain.

The employers warn that these companies - neighborhood businesses in most cases - do not have their own financial departments and have to resort to external agencies and advisers who are currently saturated and operating remotely.

The second major complaint that results from internal surveys carried out by business organizations refers to the "too rigid" solvency criteria required by both banks and the ICO itself. According to their calculations, 27% of the companies that have demanded these lines of guarantees have not obtained them and 39% regret the complex procedure to achieve it. "The second great edge manifested in this exercise of observation is the non-obtaining of credit by companies in a situation of greater vulnerability," says the employers.

According to Cepyme, chaired by Gerardo Cuerva , banks are prioritizing the provision of credit to the most solvent companies and this leaves behind those with a more complex financial situation. Typically, these are the smallest companies that already had delays in paying their bills before the crisis erupted. For this reason, SMEs ask the Government to lower the solvency criteria and especially the one that prevents access to a guarantee if the company had outstanding receipts at the end of 2019. Their proposal is to limit these debts to a maximum of 6,000 euros or 20 % of the requested financing.

The companies celebrate that the Government released last Tuesday a new tranche of the credit line and will raise the total amount of the guarantees to 60,000 million, of which 40,000 million are aimed at SMEs and the self-employed. The employers consider this figure insufficient and claims Calviño to open specific tranches with microcredits of between 30,000 and 70,000 euros given the enormous diversity of size that exists between companies. Regarding interest rates, employers do not protest and figure on an average of 2.5% for loans to small businesses and 1.5% for those of medium size.

The criticisms of SMEs contrast with the applause for the ICO program by the banking sector. The mechanism has allowed entities to double the granting of credit to companies during the month of April, assuming 20% ​​of the risk of default in the case of small companies and 30% for large companies. This system has allowed to maintain the activity of the entities at a time when credit to families for home purchase or consumption has sunk 80% due to the stoppage of activity and mandatory confinement.

For its part, the Government defends the capacity of the mechanism to irrigate the economy with liquidity. According to the latest data distributed by the Ministry of the Economy, the ICO guarantee line has made it possible to close more than 300,000 operations with a total financing of 40,000 million euros . Of this part, 30,192 million correspond to State guarantees, equivalent to 76% of the loans granted. 70% of these guarantees have gone to the self-employed and SMEs.

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