...Funding Conditions Slowly Stabilising: Bank lending is still declining in Spain, Italy and Portugal, while Germany and France are growing slowly. The Netherlands, the UK and Portugal witnessed the largest decline in outstanding loans over the past year, with a contraction of 4.0%, 5.8% and 9.0% respectively. For Italy and Spain, the contraction has now slowed significantly compared to 2013. Interest rates charged to SMEs have declined in Italy and Spain and remained stable in other countries. Germany ¡Stable Funding: German SMEs benefit from the highest rate of return on assets (RoA), which continuously increased since the low of 2009 and now stands at pre-crisis levels. Despite Germany having one of the lowest bank loan rejection rates in Europe as well as the lowest interest rates on loans to SMEs, outstanding loan volumes and total debt-to-GDP has remained largely stable over the last year (likely due to the relatively high leverage of German SMEs compared to their European peers). Italy...
