Commercial payments: serious late payments fall once more, -13% in just one year

Monday, April 10, 2017

Good news for Italian companies, which are increasingly careful at managing their credit, a strategic lever for overcoming financial difficulties. Late payments by companies to their suppliers are consistently falling. Compared to a year ago, payments more than 30 days past due, one of the main indicators of the state of health of companies, actually fell by 13%. Definitely a good sign, and which continues the positive trend which emerged in 2016.

However, only one company in three respects agreed terms with suppliers. In March 2017, 35.6% of companies paid on time, with 52.4% up to month late and 12% paying seriously late. The latter percentage reached a record minimum since 2012, even if compared with 2010 it is still 118.2% higher.

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On a regional level, companies in the north east are the most punctual payers in Italy. 44.1% pay on time, while serious late payments are only 7.3%. The reverse situation can be seen in the south and islands, where only 23.2% pay on time and 19.7% struggle to pay their debts to suppliers. The situation is also good in the north west (40.7% of payments on time, 8.4% over one month late), and the situation is somewhere in between in central Italy (31.7% of companies pay on time, 14.2% are bad payers).

Looking in detail at the individual parts of the country, on the other hand, Veneto is in top spot with 44.9% of companies paying on time and 6.9% of serious late payments. Making up the rest of the top five are Emilia Romagna (44.8%), Lombardy (44.4%), Friuli Venezia Giulia (43.5%) and Trentino Alto Adige (40.2%). At the bottom of the classification we find Sicily, with only 19.5% of payments within the due date compared with 21.7% of serious late payments. The situation is also bad for Calabria (21.8%), Campania (21.9%) and Sardinia (23.5%).

Lastly, in terms of sectors, the financial services sector is the one in the best health with a 46.1% share of on-time payments, compared with 9.4% of serious late payments. Industry and manufacturing are also in good health (40.3% of punctual companies, 8.2% serious late payments). The CRIBIS study for the first few months of 2017 also highlights the significant difficulties for retail trade, which risk affecting the performance of all the upstream production chains. Just 25.9% of companies, 1 in 4, belonging to this segment pay on time, compared with 18.2% of payments more than one month late.

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