The article entitled 'Which banks were more effective in supporting credit supply during the pandemic?', written by researchers from the Bank of Italy, is now online.
This note investigates which bank characteristics explain the observed heterogeneity in bank credit supply to non-financial corporations (NFCs) during the pandemic, focusing on both balance-sheet and organizational factors. According to the findings of the empirical analysis, bank credit developments were mostly unrelated to bank capital and liquidity buffers during the central months of the pandemic outbreak. The analysis confirms, instead, the importance of organizational indicators: intermediaries that rely more on digitalized processes for the provision of credit were able to expand lending faster, especially during the lockdown.
