Expert contributions
Autor: Prof. Dragana Gnjatovic PhD
Summary: The end of the 19th century in Serbia witnessed coming into life of the farming crediting cooperatives. They are to remain the sole specialised institutions for crediting farming until The Privileged Agrarian Bank was established in 1929. Although primarily envisaged to serve for salvaging farmers from loan-sharks, they had in time grown into autonomous development crediting organisations. Thriving in their business founded on principles of bonds of solidarity and high ethical values of its membership, farming crediting cooperatives acquired statutory and material support of the Serbian nation state. In this manner, the adverse effects of laws, restricting rural population from acquiring by any legal means mortgage and draft loans, had been mitigated at least in part.