What a bank reads in the Centrale dei rischi before granting a loan
1 November 2026, 07:55
When a business applies for a loan, the bank looks at the financial statements, which describe the year just closed, and at a second document that shows month by month how the business has used the credit received from all lenders, not only from the institution it is approaching: the Centrale dei rischi, the Bank of Italy's central credit register. On 30 October, at World Savings Day, the Economy Minister pointed out that bank credit to the smallest businesses has fallen for the fourth year running, while credit to the larger ones is growing. When lending becomes more selective, it pays to know what the decision-maker sees.
The register records every month the debts owed to the whole system
It is a Bank of Italy database, fed by the reports of banks, finance companies and other intermediaries: each one reports, for every customer, the credit granted, the guarantees received and the portion actually used. Reporting is triggered when the position with that intermediary reaches €30,000, or €250 if the customer is classified as a bad debtor, that is, judged to be in serious difficulty in repaying the debt. In turn, each intermediary receives from the Bank of Italy the overall picture of its own customers: how much they have obtained and how much they are using with all the others.
For each category, the credit granted is compared with the credit used
Credit is divided into categories that match the ways a business finances itself. Self-liquidating risks are advances on invoices and bank receipts (ricevute bancarie), which close when the business's customer pays. Term risks are loans and leases, repaid according to a schedule. Revocable risks are overdraft facilities on current accounts, which the bank can withdraw at any time. For each category and each intermediary the register shows two amounts: the operational granted amount, that is, what has been granted under a contract already finalised, and the amount used, that is, what the business is actually drawing.
The ratio between the two measures how much of the granted facilities is already committed. Guides to analysing the register consider a category under strain when the amount used exceeds 75 per cent of the operational granted amount, because little headroom is left for an unexpected expense. When the amount used exceeds the operational granted amount, the register records an overrun: the business has used more than it was granted, and whoever assesses a new application reads it as a sign of treasury management that cannot keep within the agreed limits.
Customers' unpaid bills end up in the business's own data
Two aspects of how it works matter more than they seem. The first concerns advances: when an advanced invoice or bank receipt falls due and the customer does not pay it, the amount leaves self-liquidating risks and the register records it among revocable risks. A customer who fails to honour a receipt therefore leaves a mark on the position of the business that presented it to the bank, even if that business did everything by the book.
The second concerns the date. The amount used is the one on the last day of the month, not the average for the period. A company that pays its suppliers at month-end and collects from customers after the middle of the following month shows its usage at its highest point every time, and on those days it risks exceeding the operational granted amount even if for the rest of the month it uses only a modest share.
It follows that the register should be read before applying for a new loan. The Bank of Italy provides every business with its own data free of charge, at the request of its legal representative, and anyone who compares them with the balances in the accounts on the same date may also find reporting errors, which the intermediary is required to correct. A month-by-month forecast of payments and receipts, which in controlling is updated with actual data, shows in advance the months in which the amount used will approach the amount granted: that is the moment to ask the bank to adjust the facilities, before the register records an overrun.
The financial statements tell the bank how the closed year went. The Centrale dei rischi shows it how the business uses, month after month, the credit it has already obtained, and for whoever must decide whether to grant more, it is the most recent information available.
This article was prompted by a news item published in Milano Finanza on 30 October 2026.