8. Chile
In general, as of September 2023, inflation has continued to fall, although it remains high, in a context where activity and demand have continued to advance in their adjustment process, cost pressures have been reduced and two-year inflation expectations stand at 3%.
From a subnational perspective, GDP grew in all regions, registering a rise of 2.4% for the country. It was estimated that in 2023 it would fall between -1.75% and -0.75% and increase between 2 and 3% in 2024. To a large extent, the downward correction for 2023 and 2024 responds to the new assumption for trend growth.
The Internal Revenue Service (SII) provides a size classification according to total annual sales of businesses. MSMEs concentrate 98.56% of companies according to SII records for the tax year 2021, excluding companies without information from the total universe of companies (i.e. excluding informal entities). MSMEs only accounted for 13.93% of total annual sales in UF.
According to the Quarterly Survey of Bank Credit Conditions of the Central Bank of Chile in Q4 2022, the conditions for the supply of credit to companies remain limited. The fraction of entities reporting more demanding loan standards for large firms and SMEs reached 39% and 36%, respectively, which is slightly lower than the figures reported during the previous quarter.
As in previous years, in 2022, Chile developed a solid economic relief plan through the so-called ‘Chile Apoya Plan”, an inclusive recovery plan including 25 measures to boost job creation, support smaller firms, and address the rise in the cost of living, among others.
In the case of smaller firms, support was channelled through Production Development Corporation (Corfo) and Technical Cooperation Service (Sercotec). These institutions sought to expand the coverage of support programmes for reactivation and the creation of special support instruments focused on tourism and culture sectors, with a special focus on gender parity and fostering cooperatives. The programmes allowed to assist more than 120 000 MSMEs and cooperatives from all regions of the country, for a total of USD 1 billion.
Additionally, for MSMEs a new stream to access credit guarantees was delivered by the creation of the Fogape Chile Apoya bill. Unlike the previous two Fogape bills (2020 and 2021), the state guarantee for loans is exclusively for MSMEs.
In 2021, the guarantee programmes granted by the Corfo, such as COBEX, Pro Inversión and FOGAIN, benefited almost 32,000 companies, reflecting an increase of 62.3% compared to the same period of 2021, granting more than 40,000 operations with Corfo Guarantees of more than USD 1.3 million. 89% of the guarantees were allocated to micro and small firms.
Venture capital funds, supported by Corfo programmes, continue to be an important source of financing for technology-based companies with high growth capacity. Although in 2020 there was a 14% drop in investments compared to 2019, mainly due to the effects of the pandemic, in 2021 and 2022, venture capital investment experienced a year-on-year growth of 30% and 23% respectively, growing from CLP 49 billion in investment in 2020 (about USD 63 million) to CLP 77 billion (about USD 89 million) in 2022.
In the case of non-bank financing, in 2022 the Corfo MiPymes Credit Programme allowed 82,000 companies to access financing through non-bank financial institutions, mobilising almost USD 255 million in credits, factoring and leasing.
In 2022, the Superintendence of Insolvency and Reentrepreneurship (Superir) worked on the modernisation project of regulation No. 20,720, with the aim of providing relief by reallocating resources and creating new procedures for micro and small enterprises in order to ease their experience.
Finally, the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF) has been leading the discussion of the Fintech bill. The bill was approved by the Congress in December 2022, and promulgated on January 4, 2023. The Law establishes a flexible regulatory framework for a number of companies that offer financial services but are not currently regulated or supervised by the Financial Market Commission. These include crowdfunding platforms, financial transaction platforms and custodians, intermediation and order routing.
Additionally, a new framework is created for the development of a regulated Open Finance System, in which Chilean citizens and firms will be able to share, with prior consent, their financial information, with the aim of accessing better products and services.
A worsening international scenario has become the main source of risks to global financial stability. The last few months have seen a significant increase in risk aversion in global markets amid monetary policy adjustments, the large-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine, the weaker Chinese economy, and some financial tensions in Europe. Thus, the risks of episodes of abrupt correction in asset prices and capital outflows have increased, especially from emerging economies.
The Chilean financial market has been affected by global trends, which highlights the greater volatility of the peso and long-term interest rates compared to their historical behaviour. This reflects a narrower capital market, which reduces the economy's ability to accommodate external financial pressures. The assessment of the financial situation of companies and banks suggests that there are no sources of systemic vulnerability, although some concern in companies in the real estate and construction sectors stand out. Banks are resilient, although they face challenges from an economic environment and more deteriorating financing conditions.
The Internal Revenue Service (SII) provides a size classification according to total annual sales of businesses. MSMEs concentrate 98.56% of companies according to SII records for the tax year 2021, excluding companies without information from the total universe of companies (i.e. excluding informal entities). MSMEs only accounted for 13.93% of total annual sales in UF1. The Metropolitan region is the one that concentrates the largest number of MSMEs, with 434,095 (43.35%), followed by the Valparaíso region (9.7%), and the Biobío region (7.46%) in 2020.2
In particular, the company size classification is constructed from the annual sales of companies registered in the SII. The categorisation that incorporates the five sections established by the SII is detailed below:
Microenterprises are those with annual sales of 0.01 UF to 2,400 UF.
Small businesses have annual sales of 2,400.01 UF to 25,000 UF.
Medium-sized companies with annual sales of 25,000.01 UF to 100,000 UF.
Large companies are all those that sell annually more than 100,000.01 UF.
The companies indicated as "no sales" correspond to taxpayers whose declared tax information does not allow to determine an estimated amount of sales.
The data indicates that in 2022, the outstanding debt of SMEs increased from CLP 25.3 billion in 2021 to CLP 25.8 billion in 2022.
However, despite the increase, the share of the outstanding stock of SME loans to the total loans (CLP 133.9 million) decreased in 2022 and stood at 19.3% compared to 20.1% registered in 2021.
The stock of new business loans in 2022 amounts to CLP 85.8 billion, of which CLP 4.2 billion are earmarked for loans to SMEs, representing a share of 4.9%. In 2021, the new business loans were CLP 70.4 billion, of which CLP 6.5 billion went to SMEs, representing 9.2%. Therefore, new business loans for SMEs decreased as amount as well as share.
On the other hand, short-term loans for SMEs increased by 24.8% in 2022 (up from 13.2% in 2021). The increase in the stock of loans is mainly due to the support granted by Corfo, which is an executing agency of government policies in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation, under the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism that offers several financial instruments, among which are the Risk Coverage Guarantee Funds. The main influential instrument under the administration of the State Bank, is Fogape, which is intended to guarantee a certain percentage3 of the capital of credits, leasing operations and other financing mechanisms that financial institutions, both public and private, grant to micro/small entrepreneurs, exporters and organisations of small entrepreneurs. Fogape started in 2020 to face the COVID-19 health crisis, continuing for 2021 and 2022.
According to the Quarterly Survey of Bank Credit Conditions of the Central Bank of Chile in Q4 2022, credit supply to companies remains limited. The proportion of banks reporting stricter standards for large firms and SMEs reached 39% and 36%, respectively.
Interest rates for SMEs have increased since 2021 from 6.4% to 11.2% in 2022. This increase is explained by the December 2022 Monetary Policy Report, indicating that domestic bank credit continues to be very dynamic, amid restrictive supply and limited demand. The different placement categories show low annual variations in a historical perspective, with interest rates remaining high.
Meanwhile, demand for credit from companies remains weak. While for the segment of large companies, the proportion of banks that perceive in December 2022 a lower demand is similar to that of December 2021 (38.5%), the portion that considers a stronger demand decreases from 15,4% in 2021 to 7,7% in 2022. As for SMEs, the proportion of banks reporting weakening demand increased from 9.1% in 2021 to 45.5% in 2022, and banks reporting stronger demand remain at 9.1%.
Invoice factoring and discounting
The factoring market is based on three major players: The Banking Factoring Association (ACHEF A.G.), the Non-Banking Factoring Association (EFA A.G.) and the Chilean Commodity Exchange (BPCl). Today, SMEs have many more options than before to obtain quick liquidity at low cost. The factoring industry has evolved and there are more favorable alternatives for SMEs. Currently, more than 100 alternative finance providers offer financing to more than 20 thousand companies.
Leasing services offered in Chile include real estate leasing, leasing of movable property (machinery, vehicles, computer equipment, medical equipment, etc.) and subsequent leasing services.
Fintech Industry
Chile is part of the main Fintech ecosystems in the region. In 2021, Chile had more than 150 companies in the sector, with almost 50% of them internationalising their operations throughout Latin America.
According to InvestChile, the growing popularity of Fintechs has been driven primarily by customer demand. The country's large millennial population is rapidly moving away from traditional banks toward digital finance, which was further boosted by the coronavirus pandemic. According to the study conducted by EY and FinteChile in 2020, 60% of Fintechs experienced an increase in the number of their clients, and 71% are scaling their sales.
On the regulatory side, the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF) has been leading the proposed Fintech bill for the securities market since 2018. The proposal was approved in December 2022 by Congress and promulgated on January 4, 2023. The Law establishes a flexible regulatory framework for several companies that offer financial services but are not currently regulated or supervised by the Financial Market Commission. These include crowdfunding platforms, financial transaction platforms and custodians, intermediation, and order routing.
In addition, along with this, a framework for the development of a regulated Open Finance System has been created. Under this framework, people will be able to share with financial service providers, with prior consent, their financial information, with the aim of accessing better products and services and facilitating the financial management of SMEs, given that access to transaction data that allows the offer of a comprehensive accounting and management services to smaller companies, simplifying their operation and reducing costs.
Late payments
The Chilean Commodity Exchange (BPC) is an entity regulated by the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF), which provides the standards and systems for companies to trade their products and invoices. Among other things, the BPC prepares and disseminates information on the payment terms of companies with their suppliers, to encourage sustained financing and promote greater certainty in the payment processes to MSMEs. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the average payment term to SMEs was 47.5 days, in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2021, where the average payment period for SMEs was 48.5 days.
SME bankruptcies
In 2022, the Superintendence of Insolvency and Re-entrepreneurship (SUPERIR) worked on the modernisation project of regulation No. 20720, with the aim of reducing the social and economic loss of society through an efficient reallocation of resources and the creation of new procedures for micro and small enterprises. Five pillars were established to achieve this objective:
Create simplified insolvency procedures with fast processing and low administration costs for individuals, micro and small enterprises;
Increase credit recovery rates by promoting reorganizations, when the company is viable;
Provide greater legal certainty on credits whose nature merits special protection, establishing certain exceptions to the automatic extinction of obligations at the end of the liquidation procedure;
Streamline and simplify bureaucratic aspects of current insolvency proceedings.
The Financial Education Program was also strengthened during 2022, especially in the context of greater need for information on the tools provided by the Insolvency Law due to the economic effects of the pandemic. Improvements were based on 142 conferences, trainings and the “TenlaClara” website. It includes a special section called How is your business? which provides a pre-diagnosis of the financial situation, delivering an accounting balance of the business. The service is available to MSMEs.There were also 61 virtual and face-to-face talks to entrepreneurs on the benefit of Article Eleventh of the Law on Reorganization or Closure of Micro and Small Enterprises in Crisis, Law No. 20,416, and virtual training was given to economic insolvency advisors.
Non-performing loans
Total Non-performing loans show an increase in 2022. Despite being at low levels in historical terms, it went from 1.9% in 2021 to 4.4% in 2022 for all companies. On the other hand, for SMEs there is a decline, from 4.1% in 2021 to 2.2% in 2022. This is explained by the fact that SMEs were able to access debt rescheduling through special credit facilities supported by FOGAPE, Chile Apoya, among others.
In 2022, the Chilean government announced a series of measures to support and encourage the participation of MSMEs, within the ChileApoya Inclusive Recovery Plan, in order to support the people and sectors most affected by the pandemic and the global economic impacts that followed (i.e. high inflaiton, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and the subdued growth in China).
Support for MSMEs is a central axis within the Chile Apoya Plan, with multiple measures, whose strategic objective (among others) is:
Banco Estado's "Vamos MiPyme" Program:
It includes a financial offer, under preferential conditions for MSMEs, with two objectives:
Measures promoted through CORFO:
Corfo financing programmes, aimed at expanding access to credit for MSMEs and unbanked cooperatives.
Corfo MiPyme Credit - Early Stages Modality: Within the "Corfo MiPyme Credit" programme, the early stages modality will be created, which will allow the participation of non-bank financial intermediaries that today cannot enter as program operators, allowing MSMEs to have new financing options.
Investment Guarantee Fund (FOGAIN): Entry requirements will be relaxed to increase the participation of MSMEs. A special modality will be generated focused on companies led by women, with a higher percentage and coverage ceilings. It grants special coverage of up to 90% of the financing to companies led by women. The possible financing operations to benefit from the guarantee are; credit, leasing, leaseback, factoring, guarantee slip, or overdraft line; financing can be in pesos, UF, dollars and euros.
In 2021, the guarantees programmes granted by the Corfo, such as COBEX, Pro Inversión and FOGAIN, benefited almost 32,000 companies, reflecting an increase of 62.3% compared to the same period of 2021, granting more than 40,000 operations with Corfo1 Guarantees for more than USD 1.3 million. 89.0% of the guarantees were allocated to micro and small firms.
Venture capital funds, supported by Corfo programmes, continue to be an important source of financing for technology-based companies with high growth capacity. Although during 2020 there was a 14% drop in investments compared to 2019, mainly because of the pandemic, in 2021 and 2022 investment has experienced a year-on-year growth of 30% and 23% respectively, this means going from CLP 49 billion in investment in 2020 (about USD 63 million) to CLP 77 billion (about USD 89 million) in 2022.
In the case of non-bank financing, in 2022, the Corfo MiPymes Credit Program allowed 82,000 companies to access financing through non-bank financial institutions, mobilizing almost USD 255 million in credits, factoring and leasing.
Law No. 21.514: Modifies Fogape
Enacted on November 28, 2022, Law No. 21.514 modifies the guarantee fund for small and medium entrepreneurs (FOGAPE) and allows flexible payment agreements for taxes owed, to support the economy reactivation.
This Fogape will be focused on MSMEs in prioritized productive sectors (affected by the pandemic, with high delinquency rates or with higher input prices), as well as MSMEs that have not received support or have received a very low amount of support by the previous Fogapes. The objective will be the financing of working capital, refinancing and investment with guarantees of up to 95% for microenterprises, 90% small and 85% for medium, with a maximum rate of TPM + 5%.
Source: See Table 8.1
References
Central bank. (December 2022). Bank Credit Survey for the fourth quarter of 2022.
Central bank. (December 2022). Monetary Policy Report.
Central bank. (December 2022). Financial Stability Report Second Semester 2022.
Chilean Commodity Exchange and Association of Entrepreneurs of Chile (December 2022). Ranking of payers. 4th Quarter.
Commission for the Financial Market. (2022). The Commission publishes the enactment of the Fintech Law for the securities market. (https://www.cmfchile.cl/portal/principal/613/articles-59919_doc_pdf.pdf)
Corfo. (December 2022). Public Report of Corfo Guarantees. (8)
InvestChile. (2022). Chile's Fintech Industry. (https://blog.investchile.gob.cl/bloges/ley-fintech-chile.)
Library of the National Congress of Chile: Law 21514, modifies FOGAPE: (https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1185643&idParte=10384499&idVersion=2022-12-03)
Products Exchange and Entrepreneurs Association. Ranking of payers for the fourth quarter of 2022.
The information contained herein comes from background information obtained from the various actors involved in the financial ecosystem of SMEs.
It is expressly stated that the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism does not assume any responsibility for the veracity of the data with which the study or statistics has been prepared, so it does not grant any guarantee regarding those with regard to the accuracy, validity or integrity, nor does it assume responsibility of any kind for the use or application made of the aforementioned information.
Notes
← 1. UF is an adjustable monetary unit that is daily updated according to the consumer price index. As of December 31, 2022, 1 UF is equivalent to CLP 35,110.98 or USD 40.85
← 2. Own elaboration in accordance with the SII business registry of the 2021 tax year.
← 3. Individuals or legal entities may request the maximum amounts authorized by law, i.e. 3 months of sales net of VAT. It will be the financial institution that, after analyzing the debtor's credit, will define whether the credit will be 100% or a lower percentage. This guarantee is granted by different Banks and Savings and Credit Unions. Therefore, each one has its own credit conditions in terms of: amount of financing, granting terms, grace periods, interest rates and installment amount.