Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Loan, Markets and Companies

Thanks to the good payment morale, Estonia together with Finland, Sweden and Norway are ranked as the Nordic countries with a low credit risk. The average credit loss rate for all countries of Europe is 3.1%. In addition to lower credit losses, shorter payment terms and rapidly paid receivables are characteristic of Estonia.

"We can see an improvement in the data on Estonia already for the second successive year at a time when many other countries in Europe are plagued by delayed payments and very long payment terms. In Europe businesses are on the average 5.6 days late with their payments, the public sector even 7.2 days. In the case of Estonian businesses the respective indicators are two days and four days. 91% of companies in Estonia believe that in the next 12 months the situation will remain the same or improve further," Intrum Justitia AS manager Ivar Tammemae said.

In Italy, entrepreneurs selling to public authorities are forced to wait for 48 days after due date to receive payment and in Spain the corresponding figure is 34 days. On the more positive side are the Nordic countries and Germany, that generally are seeing delays below the European average.

The European Payment Report of 2016 shows that 41% of the small and medium sized companies (SMEs) in the survey say that the consequence of not being paid on time is prohibiting growth while 30% among larger corporations say the same. Furthermore, late payments clearly means increased liquidity squeeze for the smaller businesses with 48% of the respondents in this category rating this consequence with medium to high impact. To further stress the seriousness of the situation, 35% of the European SMEs view late payments as a threat to their overall survival, while the corresponding figure for large corporations is 23%.

The Intrum Justitia survey of payment behavior and payment risks was carried out simultaneously in 29 European countries from February to April 2016 by interviewing 9,440 businesses, including 203 from Estonia. Intrum Justitia has conducted the survey regularly since 2000.