The paper analyses the effect of banks' adoption of digital technology in the corporate loan market in Italy. Our goal is to evaluate whether and through which channels the degree of digitalization of financial intermediaries influenced the volume of lending granted to non-financial corporations during the pandemic.
Our analyses show that the most digitalized banks experienced higher credit growth rates during the pandemic, especially in the initial phase of the crisis; the increase was greater for loans granted to smaller and financially sounder companies and for banks able to combine physical and digital channels in their provision of financial services.
Published in 2024 in: Journal of Financial Stability, v. 71, Article 101230.
