The survey indicated that interest rates rose, standards were tightened and that the expectations in this regard by companies are not positive either.
The conditions of the commercial credits with they toughened up their standards from the instability which was exposed with four bank collapseamong which stood out the Silicon Valley Bank and the one of Signature Bank. Within this framework, smaller companies of USA reported that in March they had more difficulties receiving loans.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB, for its acronym in English) published a survey on the matter this Tuesday. According to this survey, among the owners who resort to credit frequentlyhe 9% assured that the difficulty obtaining credit, in the last three months, increased.
On the other hand, the 26% of business owners consulted assured having paid a highest interest rate in march Compared to the previous three months, the highest percentage since 2006.
In March, four banks collapsedthat caused , prompted many lenders to toughen standards for commercial lending. This phenomenon had an impact mainly on smaller companies since in many cases they may be the ones that depend the most on loans. That situation worsens a financial environment that it was already difficult after a year of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
Expectations for the coming months
The same percentage of respondents who highlighted credit tightening also pointed out that credit conditions will continue to get worse in the next three months. “Small business owners are skeptical of future economic conditions“, he claimed Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB Chief Economist, it’s a statement. And he assured that the most immediate uncertainty comes from the fear that a banking crisis“.
This complication of the conditions of the loans was added to the deterioration of the sales projections, in this way, in March the small business optimism index measured by NFIB in 0,8 points and thus fell to a minimum of three months of 90.1.
