The development of Microcredit in Italy

1 In the future the question will not be ‘Are people credit-worthy’, but rather, ‘Are banks people-worthy?’ Muhammad Yunus 1. INTRODUCTION 1 Microfinance and microcredit are concepts frequently mentioned in recent talks about financial inclusion, economic and human development. Their relevance is particularly significant in correlation with socially useful goals, such as alleviating poverty and stimulating local entrepreneurship within a country, especially in the developing and poor ones. Although these concepts are often used interchangeably, they do not mean exactly the same thing. Indeed, microfinance can be considered an economic branch of the financial contracts and includes different components, such as: microcredit, microsavings, microinsurance and functioning of dedicated institutions. On the other hand, the broad definition of microcredit is the collection of lending and saving methods alternative to traditional forms of credit. Nowadays, microcredit is often associated with Mohammed Yunus, Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006. Since seventies of last century, he proposed a financial instrument of credit access for poor communities, 1 Niccoli, A., Presbitero, A., F., Microcredito e Macrosperanze, 2010, pp. 1-6.