Crédit individuel et informalité sont-ils compatibles ? Une expérience brésilienne

This article analyses an individual microcredit program developed in Rio’s shantytowns. We study its selection criteria and the determinants of borrowers’ repayment performance. More specifically, this work aims to study the link between informality and credit discipline. First, we question if individual microcredit targets informal agents, generally excluded from traditional commercial banking but considered as a major actor in Brazil. Then, we examine repayment capacities of these agents. Our results show a contradiction between selection criteria and the determinants of repayment performance: the likelihood of having access to a microcredit ex ante is lower for an informal agent than for a formal one, but, ex post, this latter turns out to be a “bad” debtor. Apparently, having access to alternative financing sources negatively impacts the reimbursement discipline of formal borrowers.