Access to credit remains difficult for individual European Union (EU) farmers, especially for young farmers without a credit background. The conditions for obtaining a loan or guarantees for the investments and productive restructuring thus become more difficult to meet. A recent study carried out by Fi-compass in the Member State (MS) estimated a substantial short and longer-term financial gap for EU farmers between €7.06 billion and €18.60 billion. Meeting the conditions to unlock sources of finance consequently becomes more difficult. In this context, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), with a budget of over €96 billion for the period 2014-20, aims at strengthening the EU’s agriculture, forestry sector and rural areas in general. The EAFRD support can be provided through grants and, increasingly, through financial instruments (FIs). In particular, the EAFRD FIs can support the implementation of all investment measures in Rural Development Programmes (RDPs), on condition that they address a market failure or sub-optimal investment situation. FIs under EAFRD are available to operators undertaking financially viable investments in agriculture, forestry and rural areas in general terms. This work aims to draw attention to some aspects of the role played by FIs in rural development policy. The main focus is to describe the ongoing situation in Italy and also the past experience, because in 2015, the Court of Auditors concluded that FIs had been partially unsuccessful in the rural development policy 2007-13. Support from the EAFRD is generally still provided predominantly through grants. It has been suggested that the current programming period is potentially promising, but some changes need to be implemented in order for FIs to contribute to the long-term development of the agriculture sector.