Payment by large companies and administrations is not only not improving, but is getting worse. Last year, 85% of the largest companies exceeded the legal payment deadline between companies by seven days, reaching up to 67 days. And administrations more than doubled this, settling at 70 days, instead of the 30 established in the regulations, according to the Multisectorial Platform against Default (PMcM), which brings together one million companies and self-employed workers.

Spanish banking default rates fell below 3% in June for the first time since October 2008, according to data released by the Bank of Spain. The non-performing loan ratio stood at 2.97%, very similar to the 2.92% recorded in October 2008, when the economy peaked before the financial crisis.

Late payments aren't disappearing. Despite various regulations, the obligation to pay suppliers within a maximum of sixty days is not met by many companies, which have payment terms that can even exceed three hundred days. The Multisector Platform against Late Payment (PMcM), which claims to represent around one million SMEs and self-employed workers and is led by the Catalan employers' association Pimec, has once again warned about this and emphasizes that late payments are a "structural and widespread" problem in the Spanish business world. It is also a veritable "time bomb" that the European Commission wants to defuse through a regulation that includes reducing payment terms to thirty days, with caveats; an automatic sanctioning system; and the creation of national supervisory authorities. However, it has not yet been implemented.