São Paulo – Companies increased in 5.8% their demand for credit in February over January and in 4.8% over the same month of last year. In the first two months of this year, demand went up 5.6%. The data are from the survey Serasa Experian Companies Demand for Credit index.
Micro and small enterprises lead the credit demand, increasing above the average with 6.2% in comparison to January and 6.7% in the first two months over the same period of 2014. With medium-sized companies, there was a decline in credit demand of 0.1% if compared to January, and an even bigger retraction, of 10.9%, in the first two months. With large companies, the variation also showed decline, with 1.3% in February over January, and 2.3% in the first two months of the year.
Serasa Experian’s economists assessed that the more difficult access to credit can make the micro and small business look for new options to continue with its activities. “Micro and small business are searching other alternative sources for financing, such as the trade credit, for instance” Serasa’s employees say.
The retail sector is the one leading the credit-taking list. In this area, there was an increase of 6.6% from January to February. Other sectors to register a growth in credit demand were retail (5.5%) and industry (3.6%).
Dividing by region, the biggest increase was registered in Middle West (7.3%), followed by South East (6.5%); South (6.2%); North (4.7%) and North East (2.9%). In the first two months, the demand was led by the North (9.5%), followed by Middle West (8.3%); South (7%); North East (4.2%) and South East (2.9%).
The calculation of these variations is based on the analysis of samples represented by the 1.2 million companies with the National Registry of Legal Entities (CNPJ, in the Portuguese acronym).
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
