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The rural banks were credit unions for small farmers.
In Italy they spread from the end of the 19th century by Leone Wollemborg. His initiative was supported above all by the parish priests of the country: which at the time constituted one of the rare examples of collaboration between social classes and different ideological positions, united by the desire to meet the rural population, plagued by great poverty, and the clergy of countryside. They referred to the German banks devised by Friedrich W. Raiffeisen which were based on self-help between subjects who otherwise could not have had access to bank credit. After a short time between the liberal and the Catholic component, disagreements arose and the coffers were refounded only by the Catholic component. The soul of these initiatives was the priest Don Cerutti.
Concentrated initially in the Veneto (the first Italian case was founded in Loreggia in 1883) and in Sicily they involved the joint and unlimited liability of the partners towards third parties and granted loans to small landowners, tenants and settlers. Their activity remained small for many years but they allowed the access to agricultural credit to hundreds of thousands of farmers. Alongside the rural coffers of Catholic origin, various secular agricultural coffers were founded at the beginning of the 20th century. Over the years, they spread throughout the entire national territory, including the South.
In 1936 the banking law wanted by fascism imposed on all the coffers to assume the denomination of rural and artisan coffers. The central institute ICCREA assumed particular importance. In the 1960s they became cooperative credit banks, retaining only a few original elements (for example the per capita vote and strong local roots) and becoming in many respects similar to ordinary credit banks. Still in Alto Adige the 48 Raiffeisen Kasse, all autonomous, and the 41 equivalent in Trentino use in the Italian denomination the term "rural casse".
