Resilience in times of crisis

In the corona crisis, SMEs benefit from the financial durability they have built up over the past ten years. Most businesses will overcome the crisis because of their substantial liquidity buffers and equity holdings, as the SME Diagnosis 2020 shows. For those enterprises, that are hit very hard, the extensive political support measures have been and continue to be of enormous significance.

The Savings Banks support this through their allocation of funds. With more than 79 billion Euro in new loans in the first nine months of this year alone, Savings Banks have supported their corporate clients nationwide. As local banks, they can make decisions quickly and on a case-by-case basis.

Recovery effects are already measurable: the Savings Banks‘ half-yearly figures for 2020 indicate a 25 percent increase in investment lending commitments. This gives grounds for cautious optimism and shows that local responsibility strengthens the resilience of an economy.

Yet, structural stability does not mean standing still. Feedback from the Savings Banks shows that the innovative spirit of SMEs is already recovering. Many enterprises are actively embracing the megatrends of digitalisation and sustainability. They want to implement their investment plans – provided that the economic environment is stable. Small and medium-sized enterprises in rural regions in particular are well equipped to do so, with good profitability revenue and capital resources.

The latest "SME Diagnosis 2020" describes and assesses the challenges for small and medium-sized enterprises in an increasingly volatile business world. The trend analysis is based on a survey conducted among Savings Banks’ SME experts. The statistical analyses are based on the internal balance sheet and P&L data of approximately 300,000 small and medium-sized enterprises – the largest pool of anonymised annual accounts data in Germany.