Fulfilling the objectives of the EU Payment Observatory, the 2023 Annual Report stands as its foremost analytical output. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the trends in payment behaviour in commercial transactions in the EU from 2019 to 2022, including a country-by-country breakdown. The report also offers an assessment of the 139 policy initiatives and documents aimed at combating late payments, highlighting noteworthy examples of best practices observed across the EU.
At first sight, the issue of late payments seems fairly prevalent across the EU. Over the past 4 years, nearly half of the enterprises surveyed in the ECB/EC SAFE survey reported experiencing adverse impacts due to late payments. The trend however, is positive, between 2019 and 2021, there was a slight but consistent decline in this figure, decreasing from 47 % to 42 %. However, this tendency reversed slightly in 2022, climbing back up to 43 %. This overall positive trend is particularly relevant as it happened in turbulent years from an economic perspective due to Covid-19 and high inflation. It may also indicate that the policy measures put in place by governments to support companies and their liquidity worked. In any case, it should be noted that the data point from the original sources specifies that these percentages reflect companies that have suffered negative consequences as a result of late payments rather than those that have merely encountered late payments.
Read full report here:
Write a comment