Unpaid bills, mortgage repayments and instalment loans not honoured by households and businesses. For a total of 51.8 million files handled on behalf of third parties in 2025, 12% more than in 2024 and the highest in six years. And a total value settling at EUR 188 billion, slightly down on 2024 (-1%), but equal to 8.3% of Italy’s GDP at current prices. Entrusted to recovery companies for collection, they are showing a marked improvement in collection performance. The 16th Unirec Report, the National Union of Credit Protection Enterprises, produced with Nomisma, photographs a sector with a booming performance. It was presented today, 20 May, at the Assolombarda Auditorium during a meeting that brought together some 300 of the main operators in the sector, representatives of institutions and economists.
‘Demand for credit protection services,’ Unirec chairman Cristian Bertilaccio emphasises, ‘is growing and the numbers of entrusted files and amounts may be set to increase further this year as a result of geopolitical uncertainties, particularly in the utilities sector as a consequence of high energy prices. However, we have proven to be a resilient and efficient sector and we are ready to face new challenges, also in light of the 2025 trend’.
Photography
Last year, those working in the sector recovered 22.3 million files, 15% more than in 2024 with a performance of 43%, the best result in sixteen years. The amounts collected rose to 22 billion (+5%), equal to 1% of GDP, with a ratio of entrusted to recovered of 12%, the highest value ever recorded. “The data,” Bertilaccio states, “highlight the role of our associates as a systemic infrastructure of the national credit cycle: releasing that liquidity means creating a virtuous circle to support the economic growth of our country. The mix between growth in files and a slight drop in aggregate value indicates a progressive change in entrusted portfolios: companies in the sector are intervening in earlier phases of the credit cycle on lower values. “This phenomenon,” explains the chairman of Unirec, “is consistent with the regulatory evolution of recent years, especially in the wake of the various European interventions on NPLs, which have favoured an earlier and more specialised management of the most complex credits and have pushed financial entities to outsource even activities that were once managed internally. As a result, in 2025 the average ticket of entrusted loans was EUR 3,635, down 12% compared to 2024.
Productivity
The sector’s productivity has reached a new all-time high, with an average of 4,615 files handled per employee, up 15% from 2024. This reflects the progressive streamlining of processes, thanks to digitisation, automation of lower value-added activities and more effective segmentation of portfolios, ‘but,’ Bertilaccio points out, ‘it draws attention to the sustainability of workloads for the more complex positions that require a customised approach and highly specialised professionals.
Watch out for tax credits
At regional level, Campania overtook Lombardy in terms of the number of files (6.4 versus 6 million), but the latter retains the leadership in terms of amounts entrusted (29.8 billion). Most of the volumes are still concentrated in five regions (in addition to Lombardy and Campania also Lazio, Sicily and Emilia-Romagna).
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