From Ethical Finance to Social Finance in Italy

Abstract

The financial market, by its very nature, is bound to be a subject of regulations by the legal system. Traditionally, however, the profiles governed by the legislator are aimed at bridging information asymmetries or at containing the risks related to financial activities that fall on savers or which affect 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 who operate according to parameters based on ethical evaluations or the social repercussions of the financial activities they perform. Recently the law has also recognised these profiles of financial activity, which can be seen in the micro-credit discipline, in the regulation 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 of 3 July 2017, no. 117 (Third Sector Code). Taking into consideration ethics, social aspects and sustainability obviously must be positively welcomed, but their impact is yet to be verified.