The distinctive financial and legal aspects of microcredits
Main Article Content
Abstract
In 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was won by Muhammad Yunus, a key person with respect to microcredits, and founder of the Grameen Bank. This award has kept microcredits in the news after the United Nations designated 2005 as the“International Year for Microcredits”. From an academic point of view, microcredits are usually included among what are labelled as “alternative financial instruments”, which are those that aim to develop those economic or non-lucrative activities with difficulties finding financial funding because of their characteristics or the economic status of their founder. Alternative financial instruments focus attention on the social responsibility of saving and investment instead of on lucrative aspects. So, microcredits are an alternative to those typical transactions of traditional financial institutions (banks, savings banks and credit cooperative banks) because some people do not have access to these financial services. This paper aims to evaluate microcredits from a legal and financial point of view. To achieve this goal we present, on one hand, traditional banks and credits and, on the other hand, microcredits and their main characteristics, and then the two figures are compared. We also study microcredits in Spain and the institutions that work with this instrument. Finally, the potential of microcredits is evaluated as well as how they can be put to the best use.
Downloads
Article Details
The authors acknowledge that the Revista de Fomento Social assumes as its own the intellectual property rights over their work and grant the journal the permissions of distribution and public communication of the same established in the Berlin, Bethesda and Budapest declarations; for this reason they accept that the work presented be distributed in open access, protecting the copyright under a "Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) license.
You may copy, use, disseminate, transmit and publicly display provided that:
Cite the authorship of the work, the publication in Revista de Fomento Social, issue, year and the pages where you found the information.
No commercial benefit may be obtained.
No derivative works may be made for commercial purposes that are not authorized by the journal.
Authors are encouraged to disseminate the article electronically (Revista de Fomento Social, number, year, pagination, ISSN, DOI, etc.), in order to favor its circulation and diffusion, increase its citation and reach among the academic community.
The information of the journal will be provided to Dulcinea
References
DELFINER, M., PAILHÉ, C. Y PERÓN, S. (2006), “Microfinanzas: un análisis de experiencias y alternativas de regulación”, XXI Jornadas Anuales de Economía del Banco Central de Paraguay, mimeo. XXI Jornadas Anuales de Economía del Banco Central de Paraguay, mimeo. XXI Jornadas Anuales de Economía del Banco Central de Paraguay
FERNÁNDEZ OLIT, B. (2006), “Microfinanzas: diferencias Norte–Sur”, I Seminario sobre Microcréditos organizado por ASOLCOR, Córdoba, mimeo. ditos organizado por ASOLCOR, Córdoba, mimeo. ditos
FORO NANTIK LUM DE MICROFINANZAS (2004), Los Microcréditos: alternativa fi nanciera para combatir la exclusión social y fi nanciera en España. Descripción de las principales iniciativas, Cuadernos Monográfi cos n.º 1, Madrid, edit. Foro Nantik Lum de Microfi nanzas.
FORO NANTIK LUM DE MICROFINANZAS (2005a), Los microcréditos en España, Principales Magnitudes 2004, Barcelona, edit. Obra Social “la Caixa”.
FORO NANTIK LUM DE MICROFINANZAS (2005b), Glosario básico sobre microfi nanzas, Cuadernos Monográfi cos n.º 5, Madrid, edit. Foro Nantik Lum de MicroFinanzas.
GARCÍA GARCÍA, A.C. Y GARCÍA GÓMEZ, A. (edits) (2006), Las cajas de ahorros españolas y las microfi nanzas, Granada, edit. Caja Granada.
GÓMEZ GIL, C. (2005), Los microcréditos en la cooperación para el desarrollo, Córdoba, edit. Ayuntamiento de Córdoba
GUTIÉRREZ, B. (2001), Instrumentos fi nancieros alternativos, [en línea] 5campus.org, Finanzas
LACALLE CALDERÓN, M.C. (2002), Microcréditos. De pobres a microempresarios, Barcelona, edit. Ariel.
LACALLE CALDERÓN, M.C. (2002), “Los microcréditos: una posibilidad de trabajo y mejora económica para la familia”, Revista de Fomento Social, nº 57, pp. 65–84. Revista de Fomento Social, nº 57, pp. 65–84. Revista de Fomento Social
LATIFEE, H.I. (2006), The Future of Microfi nance: Visioning the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of Microfi nance Expansión Over the Next 10 Years, ponencia en la Cumbre Global del Microcrédito 2006.
YUNUS, MUHAMMAD (1999), Hacia un mundo sin pobreza, Barcelona, edit. Andrés Bello.