Following COVID-19, Italy has introduced some financial measures to support businesses and families.

In particular, as far as businesses are concerned, the government has introduced payment suspensions which can be a real breath of fresh air in a time of difficulty.

The support measures apply to small and medium-sized enterprises (those that have an annual turnover of no more than 50 million and a number of employees of less than 250 employed, VAT holders and professionals) provided that they are all based and / or resident in Italy.

The measures are as follows:

• with reference to revocable credit openings and advances on loans existing on February 29, 2020, the amounts granted, both for the part used and for the part not yet used, cannot be revoked in whole or in part until September 30, 2020;
• for non-installment repayment loans with a contractual expiration before 30 September 2020, the expiry of the loan is extended to the same conditions until 30 September 2020;
• with reference to repayment loans (including leasing), the payment of installments (or installments) expiring before 30 September 2020 is suspended until 30 September 2020; the amortization plan will therefore be "postponed".

Access to the aforementioned measures is allowed only to SMEs that request them and on condition that they certify (also by means of self-certification) that they have temporarily suffered liquidity shortages as a direct consequence of the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic and provided that date of publication of the DL they did not have debt exposures classified as "impaired".

The moratorium applies to banks, financial intermediaries and all entities that provide credit.