Slowdown in SMEs Bank Financing in France

Within the context of the financial crisis followed by the European sovereign debt crisis, outstanding loans to non-financial companies in the euro area have been on a downward trend since 2006. However, France has been resisting over the recent period, especially SMEs, which report a slight increase of their outstanding loans. Academic studies and business surveys conducted by the Banque de France and ECB show that SMEs do not seem to be affected by credit rationing: outstanding loans and interest rates charged did not worsened for SMEs in France. This observation holds for investment loans, and to a lesser extent, for cash credit. French SMEs seem more concerned by a profitability constraint than a financing constraint: the two most pressing problems mentioned by French SMEs are finding customers and costs of production. In the prospect of the strengthening of the economic upturn, the Banque de France supports the initiatives aimed at reinforcing the possibility for credit establishments to diversify and consolidate their potential financing offers to SMEs.