ROMA (ITALPRESS) – Italian SMEs face a growing financial pressure: in September the average duration of liquidity fell to 9.5 days, while the average time of payment of invoices reached 51.2 days. At the same time, positive signs emerge on the competitiveness front, with 21.3% of companies operating on international markets and an increasing spread of artificial intelligence tools. These are some of the first data from Qonto Insights, the new free platform launched today by Qonto, the financial management solution for SMEs and free professionals with over 750,000 customers in Europe. The platform transforms the aggregated and anonymized data of the activities of small and medium European enterprises into updated and easily accessible indicators. In detail, in September 28.1% of the invoices of Italian SMEs were paid late (improved the situation in Germany 27.5%, while in France 32.4% and Spain 38.9%) and only 27.8% of Italian companies have sufficient liquidity reserves for at least one month (against France 42.4%, Germany 41.1% and Spain 29.6%). At the same time, there is a growing activity beyond the borders: Italian SMEs carrying out international transactions reach 21.3%, operating altogether with 90 countries. Artificial intelligence continues to spread, with levels of adoption that in professional and digital services exceed 20% of companies in our country.
“We are in a privileged position, as we are in direct contact with over 750 thousand companies in eight European markets. With Qonto Insights we want to further enhance this unique observatory, analyzing the real situation of European SMEs,” says Alexandre Prot, Co-Founder and CEO of Qonto. “From delays in payment of invoices to the adoption of artificial intelligence, to the growth of international activities, the goal is to support concrete and updated data each month to perceptions and hypotheses, offering a reading based on the reality of companies. The new platform offers journalists, public decision-makers and economic operators a unique perspective on the state of health of enterprises, the true backbone of the European economy, through reliable, concrete and more timely behavioral data than ever.” The backbone of the EU economy has always been neglected. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the heart of the European economy: they are over 30 million and represent 99% of the total of companies, support more than 100 million jobs and generate two-thirds of employment in the continent. However, there is no concrete and direct understanding of their operational and financial conditions. Thanks to its unique point of view, with over 750,000 SMEs customers in Europe, Qonto is the banking partner of companies that can boast a better and more in-depth understanding of the dynamics that influence growth, resilience and competitiveness.
Qonto Insights analyzes data from Qonto business customer transactions in France, Germany, Italy and Spain by offering a dynamic photograph of the SME economy in Europe.
From pressure on liquidity to delays in payments, from the adoption of artificial intelligence to expansion on international markets, Qonto Insights is designed to offer decision-makers, analysts, policy makers and media a quicker reading of European business dynamics, based on SME behaviour and proposed without interpretations or comments. Accessible free of charge from the Qonto site, the platform is updated monthly and is divided into four dedicated indices that analyze some of the most relevant aspects for the solidity and development of enterprises: IA adoption index: shows how many European SMEs invest in artificial intelligence, how much they spend on instrumentsi of IA and how many IA instruments a type enterprise is subscribed; Index of payment delays: analyze how many invoices are paid late, how long the enterprises wait to receive payments and the average value of the unusual invoices; Index of international transactions: map how many European SMEs operate across borders, in which markets carry out their own business and the average amount of cross-border cash flows; Index of the liquidity reserve: evaluate for how many days a type enterprise has a liquidity reserve, the share of SMEs with sufficient cash reserves for at least one month and how many register a negative balance at a certain time of the month.
To further deepen the results, the platform also houses the section “Qonto Insights: Explained”, which proposes analyses dedicated to individual countries, comparisons between markets and insights on the most significant trends emerging from indicators. Qonto Insights is available at: http://www.qonto.com/it/insights
– Qonto press office photos –
(ITALPRESS).
