News from 2024-07-29 / KfW Research

Business Survey 2024

Financing environment has worsened – sustainability continues to gain in importance

After recovering from the COVID-19 shock up until early 2022, the financing environment for businesses has worsened again significantly in the past two years. These are the findings of the Business Survey 2024 which KfW has conducted together with 17 umbrella organisations as well as professional and regional business associations. With the economy facing headwinds at the same time, credit demand has also receded in some parts of the business sector. Despite the challenges, however, businesses’ equity base has stabilised.

Businesses have also continued to place a growing focus on the issue of sustainability. Particularly in loan negotiations, they are being asked increasingly more often to demonstrate that they are keeping an eye on the topic and even to present relevant data. But the findings also show that businesses still have much to catch up on when it comes to tracking their sustainability KPIs.

Business Survey 2024 – Summary

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