Banks reduce overdraw facilities

Entrepreneurs who overdraw their business accounts for more than 90 days should in due course reorganize their financial requirements. According to Basel II (see MittelstandsWiki) overdrafts would “generally be considered as a plain negative criterion and early warning signal” as reports the Wirtschaft magazine published by the chamber of commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria. Prolonged periods of overdrawn accounts may lead to banks reducing their loan exposure.

In particular this fact could pose a problem to companies which engage in seasonal business operations and hitherto relied upon overdraft facilities agreed in an informal oral way. However, this so-called orally agreed “internal overdraft line” will not be taken into account according to Basel II so that any overdraft exceeding the “external” or contractually agreed limit would have negative consequences on a company’s creditworthiness. GERMAN

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