In this paper, to begin with, we define soft information as qualitative, subjective information produced by banks through the establishment of long-term lending relationships. We then highlight the importance of soft information for cooperative and social banks in the screening, pricing and...

Microfinance is generally associated with high repayment rates. However, it is not clear whether the success of microfinance results only from the use of group lending or mainly rely on peer sanctioning and long-term relationships that typically characterize microfinance contracts. In this...

Social banks are financial intermediaries paying attention to non-economic (i.e. social, ethical, and environmental) criteria. To investigate the behavior of social banks on the credit market, this paper proposes both theory and empirics. Our theoretical model rationalizes the idea that...