The credit questions of the WIFO-Konjunkturtest (business cycle survey) allow us to present the assessments and experiences of companies with regard to bank lending. The credit questions are asked quarterly in February, May, August and November.

In February 2025, companies' assessments of the banks' willingness to lend – defined as the bal-ance of the proportion of companies that describe banks' lending as accommodating (posi-tive values) and the proportion of companies that describe banks' lending as restrictive (nega-tive values) – deteriorated (i.e.: the credit hurdle increased) compared to the previous quarter (–1.3 points) and remained in negative territory at –19.2 points. There are differences according to company size: the credit hurdle is higher for smaller companies (less than 50 employees) (–21.3 points) than for medium-sized companies (50 to 250 employees: –15.7 points) and large companies (more than 250 employees: –12.4 points).

The survey results show a slight decline in demand for credit in the aggregate (excluding retail) at 20.7% (long-term average: 20.9%) (–0.9 percentage points compared to the previous quar-ter). In manufacturing, the need for credit is slightly above average (21.3% of companies report a need for credit), as is the case in the service sectors (21.5%), while the need for credit in the construction industry (17.1% of companies) and in retail (14.1%) is on average. In terms of company size (excluding retail), 21.9% of smaller companies (less than 50 employees) recently reported a need for credit, 18.8% of medium-sized companies and 19.9% of larger companies (more than 250 employees).

Of the companies with credit requirements (excluding retail), around 32.8% had to cut back on the amount or conditions (16.3% reported worse conditions, 8.6% lower amounts and 7.9% worse conditions and lower amounts than expected). This figure is still above the average of the past five years (31.2%). Around 37% of companies requiring credit were able to obtain it as expected (5-year average: 42.5%). At 32.7%, the proportion of companies with credit require-ments that did not receive a loan or did not apply for one was also above average (5-year average: 26.4%; around 7.2% of all companies surveyed) because the loan application was rejected by the bank (6.9%), the conditions were not acceptable (13.5%) or they did not try to obtain a loan due to lack of opportunity (12.4%).