Payment behavior in Austria has deteriorated for the first time in many years, and this trend is likely to intensify further in the coming year due to the many crises. This is the result of a recent study by the creditor protector KSV, in which 1,500 companies were surveyed.
“Across all sectors, 18 percent of all receivables are already paid too late. That’s around every sixth invoice,” says the managing director of KSV receivables management, Walter Koch. In the previous year it was still 13 percent.
As in previous years, according to Koch, the Austrian private sector was the “role model par excellence”, “on which both companies and the public sector should orient themselves”. 88 percent of bills from private individuals are currently paid on time.
Upper Austrian private individuals are the fastest in a country comparison with an average payment period of twelve days.
In contrast, only 78 percent of accounts receivable from corporate customers are paid on time. At the federal level it is 83 percent, in the states or municipalities 79 or 84 percent. Although one can still speak of a “halfway reasonable payment behavior”, this has deteriorated in all customer groups.
Worry about next year
Companies are pessimistic about 2023: 49 percent expect customers and business partners to have payment difficulties. “There has never been such a negative assessment in our surveys,” says Koch.
Source: Nachrichten
