Businesses: banks raise interest rates on loans in the last quarter of 2025

Brussels – Credit for businesses, regardless of their size, is becoming increasingly expensive. Despite the Central Bank’s decision to leave interest rates unchanged, and therefore the cost of borrowing money, obtaining credit in the eurozone has become increasingly expensive. From the latest  survey on access to finance for businesses conducted by the ECB itself and covering the fourth quarter of 2025, it emerges that companies in the euro area reported a net increase in interest rates on bank loans (12 per cent net, compared to 2 per cent in the previous quarter). 

This type of dynamic in interest rates on access to credit for businesses does not seem to have spared anyone. On the contrary, the ECB notes that a similar increase has been observed “by both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises.” At the same time, a net 28 per cent of companies (compared with 23 per cent in the previous quarter) reported increases in both financing costs (i.e. charges, commissions and operating costs) and collateral requirements (14 per cent, compared with 16 per cent in the third quarter of 2025). Therefore, we are witnessing a phenomenon that differs from that recorded in the first half of last year, when,  faced with a reduction in borrowing costs, credit institutions simply increased fees and commissions.

 In the final quarter of 2025, businesses of all sizes continued to perceive the general economic outlook as the main factor limiting the availability of external financing (20 per cent, compared with 19 per cent in the previous survey round) and reported a slight improvement in banks’ willingness to lend (4 per cent, up from 2 per cent). The ECB notes that, alongside increases in bank lending rates and branch costs, “at the same time, companies continued to see a deterioration in their profits, with a net 10 per cent of companies reporting lower profits (down from 13 per cent).”