Qonto, the European business finance management platform, has launched Qonto Insights, a free public data platform using anonymised transaction activity from its SME customers to track the health of small businesses across Europe.
The platform uses aggregated data from businesses in France, Germany, Italy and Spain and is updated on the 7th of each month. It tracks four areas of SME activity: cash buffers, AI adoption, late payments and international transactions. The Cash Buffer Index measures the number of days of reserves held by a typical business, the share with at least one month of cash and the proportion that falls into a negative balance during the month. The AI Adoption Index tracks the share of SMEs paying for AI tools, their average spending and the number of subscriptions held.
The Late Payments Index measures the proportion of invoices settled late, the length of delays and the average value of overdue invoices, while the International Transactions Index tracks cross-border activity, including payment destinations and average transaction values.
The first edition, covering September, points to a mixed picture for European SMEs. The median business held 18.5 days of cash runway, up 0.4 days from August. France recorded the highest median at 19.4 days, while Italy recorded 9.5 days. Across Europe, 7.4% of businesses entered a negative balance at least once during the month, down 0.2 percentage points from August.
AI adoption continued to increase, with 16.7% of SMEs paying for at least one AI subscription through Qonto, compared with 10% at the start of the year. Average monthly AI spending reached €34.46, an increase of €8.02 in a single month.
Late payments, however, moved in the opposite direction. Some 31.6% of invoices settled in September were paid late, rising to 38.9% in Spain. The average delay increased to 58.6 days, 10.8 days longer than in August, although the average value of a late invoice fell to €3.9k.
International activity remained significant, with 20.6% of SMEs conducting business across borders. Germany recorded the highest proportion at 23.5%, with payments spanning 154 countries. Businesses with 10 or more employees were the most internationally active, with 35.1% sending or receiving cross-border payments.
Qonto said the platform is intended to provide raw data rather than commentary. Its business intelligence teams aggregate and anonymise the underlying transaction data before publication, with results presented only as percentages, averages and medians to prevent individual customers from being identified.
The company plans to supplement the monthly data with periodic Qonto Insights: Explained features examining country-level findings, comparing markets and exploring individual trends across the four indexes.
Founded in 2017 by Alexandre Prot and Steve Anavi, Qonto serves more than 750,000 SMEs and freelancers across eight countries. Its platform combines business banking with invoicing, bookkeeping and spend management tools. The company has raised more than €600m and employs more than 1,700 people.
The data comes as European SMEs continue to represent a significant part of the region’s economy. There are more than 30 million SMEs across Europe, accounting for 99% of businesses and more than 100 million jobs, according to Qonto.
Qonto co-founder and CEO Alexandre Prot said, “Qonto is in a fortunate position – we have a direct line to 750,000+ small businesses across eight European markets. Now, with Qonto Insights, we’re putting that enviable position to even more good use, shining a light on the situation on the ground for Europe’s small businesses.”
He added, “From exposing the rate of late invoice payments to tracking the use of AI or international growth, it’s about putting real-time, real-world data behind hunches and hypotheticals, with trends that are updated every month. Qonto Insights gives everyone from journalists to policy-makers a front-row seat to the lived experience of small businesses – the EU’s economic backbone – through behavior-based data that’s true to life and more timely than ever.”
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