On the 20th of March, the Italian Banking Association, throughout a press release, announced the extension to the 30th of June 2013 of the so-called "New credit measures for the SMEs".

edited by the Marketing Department

The validity period applied to the series of initiatives planned in order to provide support to businesses facing difficulties, promoted and developed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development, in cooperation with the Italian Banking Association (ABI) and all the associations representing the entrepreneurial environment, has been delayed for a period of three months.

According to ABI, the measure (presented and enacted back in 2012) wishes  to "provide adequate financial resources to those businesses that, also if experiencing tension, present positive financial projections’. The measure is applied according to three types of actions in favour SMEs operating in all industrial sectors, provided that the companies are not facing “payment problems”  at the time of application submission. The measures grant to the banks the possibility to suspend loans and leasing, extend the loans period, bank advances and deadlines regarding the agricultural credit, as well as providing funding associated to increases in equity of the SMEs.

As for the suspension of the loans repayment, we are dealing with operations involving a 12-month suspension of the share capital of the loan instalments and a 12 or 6 months suspension of the share capital expected in the "real estate" and "Security" leasing , provided that the instalments are not overdue by more than 90 days and that loans and leases in question have not already taken advantage of the suspension issued in the common Notice on the 3rd of August 2009.

Extending the duration of the loans is now also possible. The expiry date of the short-term credit, regarding the advance of certain receivables and overdue credit, may in fact be postponed for up to 270 days in light of cash needs, while the maturities of the agricultural credit conduction provide an extension up to a maximum of 120 days. The loans suspended at the end of the interruption period are also admitted to the extension of the mortgages terms. Having said this however, remember that you can request an extension only for mortgages that have not already benefited from similar facilitationa (as per agreement for credit to SMEs on 16 February 2011).

The steps to promote the upturn and development of the activities are instead related to increases in its own equity firm. Even in light of the fiscal exemptions provided by the act DL December 6, 2011 n. 201, for companies that commenced processes in order to strengthen their corporate equity, the banks are committed in providing funding proportional to the increase of their own firm equity.

This important extension was decided in light of the critical situation the country is facing economically and for the coming into being of new initiatives in support of the SMEs. Banks and businesses are working in order to define a new agreement, possibly compatible with the evolving situation and the operating conditions of the credit institutions. In particular, certain issues, these being relevant to the development of the country, may be included in the new agreement, such as the mitigation of the impacts of Basel 3, the reinforcement of the Guarantees Fund for the SMEs and the development of business networks. The government in turn has moved in recent days by launching the act which immediately gives way to the settlement of the overdue payments to companies on behalf of the Public Administration. Over 40 billion Euros have been unblocked, useful for the payment of the debts of the Public Administration between 2013 and 2014. In parallel, the path outlined by the Government shall determine the compensation mechanism, by which companies can begin to balance out the amounts due to the tax agency through the Public Administration credits.

The need to exploit these benefits may depend on an obvious difficulty in collecting dues and make payments. The current economic circumstances characterising the national economy caused serious problems to those companies that find themselves in facing complex  repayment schedules of the credit granted to their customers, this causing negative impact on its creditworthiness in regards of mortgages and leasing. Besides benefiting from the support guaranteed by the credit measures, SMEs nowadays need to run fewer risks, managing efficiently and on time the credit granted to the customers.

The Mago.net Credit Limit Management module is the solution able to control the carrying out of orders based on their own needs, a reliable tool able to analyse the client situation and perform an efficient monitoring activity.

by Sonia Zarino

The sound of toasting and best wishes is still echoing in our ears and Microarea already has important news for its users and partners:   the Microarea Community, an online forum that, as from 12 January will enable anyone who actively participates to improve and share their knowledge of the Microarea products and services.

We talked about this with the project manager, Andrea Rinaldi, who stressed the most significant features of this new tool: “The forum has three basic objectives:

1. To be a place to swap information where people can network and share experiences on the Microarea products and services, give and get help or just swap ideas and points of view;
   
2. Become a store of experiences and knowledge of the Microarea products and services accessible to the Community and easy to use with appropriate keywords;
   
3. Create added value for all the Community users with the accumulation of contributions by various participants that translates, for example into saving a good deal of time (and therefore of money!) spent searching for information or developing software.
   

So, the conjecture is common interest and desire to share.”

Mr. Rinaldi uses a suggestive image to simply explain the mechanism of the forum: “Imagine the forum as a large container to which each regular visitor adds even just one coin: the great thing is that because we are dealing with knowledge, the content can only grow, and the container will never be empty, however much people draw from it the knowledge collected there. Overall, the more active the community of people networking in the forum, the higher added value obtained. Furthermore, individual users get back a lot more than they give and everyone can draw great advantage from joining the forum.”

You can only access the Microarea Community after registering on the Microarea site, using the same selected credentials. Depending on your profile (partner, user, prospect), you can access diverse areas where you can initiate discussions on issues you are interested in.
“Microarea hosts the forum”, explains Mr. Rinaldi, “but it doesn’t guide the discussions: we thinks its right for the users of the service – Microarea users and partners to communicate directly with each other.
Microarea mainly acts as moderator and ensures compliance with the principles of “Netiquette”: politeness, reciprocal respect, relevance of the topics, ban on advertising etc…”

How can you enter the Microarea Community?

Here are the simple steps to take in order to join the Community:

• If you haven’t already done so, register on the Microarea portal;

• Access the Forum and use the same credentials to enter;

• At this point we recommend carefully reading the Netiquette that includes the code of conduct so you always act correctly and can avoid possible “gaffes”;

• After reading and accepting the Netiquette regulations you can start visiting the forums and access the various theme areas to suit your profile.

It’s a good rule to read what has already been written on a given topic so you don’t repeat issues that have already been covered. If there is no answer to your question, you can ask the Community for help by writing a new post. One function that could be of interest to the user is notification by email of the response published on the forum.