Small businesses in the euro zone say it has become more difficult to get access to credit in the past six months, with great differences in loan availability across the region, the European Central Bank said today.

In a survey on access to finance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 12 per cent of survey participants reported that their loan applications had been rejected, compared with 11 per cent in the previous survey, conducted six months earlier.

The ECB also said that financing conditions for small firms varied greatly within the 17-country region, with half the smaller businesses in Greece, Spain and Italy saying access to finance was a “very pressing problem”.

Germany was the only country where bank loan availability improved in the April to September period form the previous six months.

“Euro area SMEs also reported a marginal deterioration in the availability of bank loans,” the report said, and added that small firms in Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium said the deterioration of bank loan availability was accelerating.

“The percentage of SMEs reporting access to finance as their main problem remains broadly stable at 16 per cent,” it said.

It showed that only a third of Greek and Dutch firms, which applied for a loan, received full approval, compared to four-fifths of those in Germany and Finland.

The report also said that financing conditions were more difficult for small companies than for large ones, and that interest rates vary widely across the region and were rising in Spain and Italy.

“Mainly SMEs in Spain and Italy contributed, on balance, to the reported increase in bank lending rates, whereas SMEs in Germany and France indicated on balance a decline,” the survey said.

The survey of 8,305 euro zone firms was conducted between August 28th and October 4th. (Reuters)