In this chapter, I present the first stage of the financialization process of Argentine welfare policy. First, I provide a brief account of the relationship between social policy and finance from the beginning of democracy until 2002. In this regard, the chapter addresses the neoliberal reform of social policy and reconstructs the history of microfinance and microcredit programs in Argentina, as they constitute a significant milestone in the nexus between social assistance and finance. It then analyzes the first stage, which encompasses a short but crucial period, as during these years two central characteristics of the financialization process were consolidated: the massification of conditional transfers and the banking of their holders. This stage begins after the social outbreak in December 2001 and is characterized by the compulsory banking of the growing universe of social benefit holders, which resulted from the massification of conditional income transfer programs as a strategy to address the socioeconomic crisis.