A survey of German banks and other finanical institutions by consulting firm Earnst & Young (EY) shows that many plan to put stricter conditions on lending to corporate clients in the coming six months.
EY's Banking Barometer survey, released on Monday, found 52% of financial institutions planning tighter conditions on lending.
Another 40% of firms said nothing would change, while just 8% planned to use looser criteria for corporate lending.
Seven out of 10 banks (72%) also expect credit risks to increase as a result of structural changes in the German economy, while just 2% of the banks surveyed assume that risks will decrease.
For the Banking Barometer, EY surveyed 100 representative financial institutions in Germany in April and May of this year, including private banks, cooperative banks and savings banks.
The banking industry agreed with near unanimity that a trend of bank branch closures in Germany would continue into the future. Only one of the 100 banks surveyed expected no further cuts in Germany by 2025, while 63% said the number of bank branches would fall by up to 10% or even more in the coming year.
According to the latest figures from the German central bank, the Bundesbank, the number of bank branches in Germany fell below 20,000 for the first time last year.
As of December, there were a total of 19,501 staffed bank branches in Germany.
Because many people carry out banking transactions on their home computer or via an app on their smartphone, financial institutions have been thinning out their expensive branch network for years and trying to maintain their presence in the area without fixed locations.
Banks have turned to efforts including video chats, call centres with longer opening hours, savings bank buses or shared branches operated jointly by multiple banks.
