The owners of VSEs display good relations with their bank, despite the slowdown in economic activity, but it is very rarely an online bank, due to the lack of a dedicated contact person or simply a contact person, underlines Tuesday a Ifop study for Fiducial.
Thus, 83% of owners of very small businesses declare that they have satisfactory relations with their bank – including 26% very satisfactory – and 78% only work with one bank. A large majority seem loyal to this bank: 88% have not considered changing in recent months, 80% and 78% respectively have not considered competing with other banks, or working with several banks.
Only 5% of small business owners use an online bank
On the other hand, 91% of these small business owners do not use an online bank for their professional activity, compared to 5% who do (2% could use it soon, and 2% have done so in the past). The absence of a dedicated contact person (42%) and difficulties reaching an interlocutor (13%) are the two main reasons which dissuade these bosses from using an online bank for their professional activity.
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The bosses of VSEs are also showing a strong renewed confidence at the end of 2023 in the measures announced or put in place by Emmanuel Macron and his government. (+12 points compared to the previous quarter, but a level which remains low, 39%). The announcement of a Pacte II simplification law by the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, at the end of 2023, seems to be the origin of this revival.
Optimism rises by 7 points (33%) on the general business situation in France, but it drops by five points on the activity of the own companies of the bosses interviewed, a respectable 58% nonetheless. At the same time, nearly a third (32%) of the VSEs surveyed encounter financial difficultiesor 5 points more than in September.
Finally, 13% of VSE managers hired or planned to hire in the last quarter of 2023 (+1 point compared to the 3rd quarter), while 6% eliminated one or more positions during the same period (-2 points). The positive differential between hires and cuts therefore improved in the last quarter, going from 4 to 7 points. The survey was carried out from December 11 to 29, 2023 by telephone among a sample of 1,005 managers of very small businesses (VSEs) with 0 to 19 employees.
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