Credit accessibility and corporate social responsibility in financial institutions: the case of microfinance

Abstract

What are financial institutions' social responsibilities in developing countries? On the one hand, these institutions share the generic responsibilities of all human organizations and business enterprises. However, their specific social responsibility is the performance of the social function of financial intermediaries, which, in the case of emerging countries, consists mainly of contributing to economic growth and solving the problem of poverty. This paper describes a number of technical‐economic and moral problems that take us to a consideration of the performance of banking operations in microfinancing, with special reference to Latin America. The paper also provides a series of recommendations that, in addition to contributing to solving the development and poverty problems in emerging countries, help define financial institutions' social responsibility in such countries.