Confidi, credit disbursed grows but operating margins are negative

Fifteen fewer Confidi in one year and more than EUR 600 million in credit disbursed by the end of 2025, an increase of 6.7% compared to 2024. These are the main figures of the Annual Report presented by Torino Finanza. At the end of 2025, there were 164 Confidi in Italia, including 30 major Confidi - two less due to mergers - and 134 minor ones. Italian Confidi held a total of EUR 7.4 billion in stock of guarantees - data available as at 31 December 2024 (-4.%). In just one year, they issued about 2.7 billion (-3%).

These are the most significant numbers that photograph the activities of consortia whose 'core' activity is to facilitate access to credit for SMEs by issuing guarantees in favour of banks. The state of health of these entities is assessed in the 2026 Report of the Permanent Observatory on Confidi, edited by the Comitato Torino Finanza.

Since 2005, the Comitato Torino Finanza has been carrying out this research in which it analyses the credit guarantee market in Italia, tracking its development also in the light of regulatory developments and proposing some points for discussion. The emerging issues that institutions have to deal with range from the ever-increasing weight for companies of sustainability factors (ESG) to the role of artificial intelligence in credit assessment processes, without forgetting the automated statistical systems (credit scoring) used by banks and financial institutions to screen the creditworthiness of loan applicants.

The report shows how the financial solidity of the Confidi is judged to be adequate in relation to the risks taken, although as regards the economic sustainability of the Confidi's core business, i.e. the provision of credit guarantees to SMEs, the Report notes, almost all of them record an inadequate ratio between operating costs and revenues. In the last three financial years alone (2022-2024), the Confidi in the sample have accumulated a negative operating margin of EUR 149 million, EUR 121 million from the largest confidi, EUR 28 million from the smallest. A situation only partly offset by the non-core aspects of management, the main one being the investment of the liquidity held.

The key point, emphasise the report's authors, Diego Bolognese and Gianmarco Paglietti, 'is that the value of the Confidi now lies not only in mitigating risk, but in being able to read it better. The future of the Confidi is not only played on the quantity of credit activated, but on the quality of the information they are able to produce and govern. Because, today, the real competitive advantage is not to have less risk, but to be more readable'.