From Ethical Finance to Social Finance in Italy
From Ethical Finance to Social Finance in Italy

Summary/Abstract: The financial market is almost naturally called to be the matter of the regulation by the legal system. Traditionally, however, the profiles governed by the legislator are aimed at bridging information asymmetries or at containing risks related to financial activities falling on savers or on the overall stability of the system. There is no shortage of cases in which financial operators autonomously decide to pursue non-speculative goals and use financial activities for ethical or social purposes, or operate according to parameters based on ethical evaluations or social repercussions of the financial activity they perform. Recently there has also been a legal recognition of these profiles of financial activity, which can be seen in the micro-credit discipline, in the one enacted in the Consolidated Banking Act on ethical and sustainable finance or, finally, in the provision of financial instruments to support the so called third sector, enacted in the legislative decree 3 July 2017, no. 117 (Third Sector Code). These openings to ethics, social and sustainability obviously must be positively welcomed, but the actual impact is yet to be verified.

• Details
• Contents