Introduction

In recent years, the socioeconomic events that involved the main world countries have led companies to rethink their typical functions. The speculative subprime bubble, transferred from overseas in the early 2000s, in the European context, caused a significant decrease in liquidity, with the consequent contraction of banks’ willingness to grant credit to companies. This becomes even more important when one also considers the constraints that supranational bodies have imposed on banks in terms of credit provision. Capitalization and supervisory capital constraints inevitably involve a natural selection of subjects to whom banks may grant liquidity disbursements. This mechanism favors the most capitalized organizations and penalizes those that see banks as their primary financial partner, such as small medium enterprises (SMEs).