Unfortunately, the information on SME lending is very fragmentary. According to the Banca d’Italia (1999: 180), the share of loans to small businesses increased until the early nineties, but then contracted until 1998. 5 In recent years, SME lending has increased at a more rapid pace than lending to other firms (Banca d’Italia 2003, 2004). Hence, the evolu- tion of SME loans in the 1990s may have been a transitional problem. Interestingly, the share of smaller banks (with total assets of less than Euro 7 billion) in total lending in- creased sharply between 1995 and 2003, from 24 to 32 percent (Banca d’Italia 2002, 2004). This is consistent.
