ATECO 2025 reclassification removes €3.5 billion lending breaks
The Bank of Italy has reconstructed sectoral lending statistics back to January 2022 under ATECO 2025. Without reconstruction, the classification change would create breaks of about €3.5 billion each in construction and real estate lending at the January 2026 transition.
New labels redraw sector exposures
Francesco Cusano and Simone Di Paolo document the reconstruction of the Bank of Italy's ATEC2025 lending series for January 2022–December 2025.
Banks began reporting under ATECO 2025 in January 2026.
In December 2025, about 10 percent of AnaCredit borrowers changed activity group.
Around 61,000 moved from trade to residual activities, 10,000 from trade to manufacturing and 35,000 from construction to real estate.
Trade's share of lending fell from 17.1 to 16.7 percent under the new classification; construction fell from 7.9 to 7.4 percent, while real estate rose from 7.8 to 8.4 percent.
ATECO 2025 corresponds to NACE Rev. 2.1 and splits information and communication into content activities and information technology services.
Backward estimates preserve reported totals
The method starts with January 2026 bank balance-sheet reports and works backward using monthly changes in AnaCredit loan stocks.
Proportional corrections keep reconstructed sector totals consistent with reported aggregate lending.
AnaCredit excludes some banks, exposures of €25,000 or less and sole-proprietor business households.
The ATEC2025 table contains 26 series.
Separately, the European Central Bank requested 44 quarterly corporate lending series, reconstructed from the first quarter of 2022: 22 for domestic borrowers and 22 for borrowers elsewhere in the euro area.
Reclassification is not credit contraction
The construction and real estate breaks reflect classification changes, not changes in credit.
Historical ATEC2025 figures are estimates rather than newly reported observations.
Limited AnaCredit coverage of business households leaves their reconstructed series close to the previous classification.