The availability of consumer credit during financial crises

This paper aims to provide an outline of the main factors characterizing the demand and the offer of consumer credit in modern financial markets: more in particular, by focusing attention on the management policies and commercial solutions adopted by the leading Italian operators during recent years, we aim to establish the most relevant concerns that have affected the market of consumer credit in the aftermath of the recent financial crisis. In order to achieve this result, we proceeded to the definition of a survey, created through a careful sampling methodology choice, which we conducted between late 2012 and the first semester of 2013, as of the preparation and subsequent submission of a specific questionnaire to a wide sample of Italian financial intermediaries. As expected, among other results, we find that the financial crisis strongly reduced the capability of consumers to achieve any financing for their consumption purposes, even if significant differences arise from specific characteristics of loans and customers creditworthiness. Because of some features characterizing the Italian market and the survey we elaborated, we consider the evidence we obtained of a particular interest in order to determine the mechanisms which characterize the credit consumer market over a widespread number of countries.