Financial Promise for the Poor: How Groups Build Microsavings, is the go-to book on savings groups. Click to order.
Some blog posts you might have missed…
Self-Replication of Savings Groups in Western Kenya by Kuria Wanjau
Mpendulo: Savings in 8 or So Minutes by Jill Thompson
Proof the Add-Ons Work, Really by Sarah J Ward
Annie Rose Barber | Wednesday, May 23, 2012 at 6:20PM ;)
A recent study conducted in South Africa investigates the benefits of Savings and Credit Group Membership among rural women affected by HIV / AIDS.Paul Rippey | Sunday, May 13, 2012 at 6:21AM ;)
In September last year, Sarah Ward of IRC shared an article she had written about VSLAs in Côte d’Ivoire as the villages faced election violence. Sarah told the story of one brave treasurer who buried her group’s metal box moments before she fled her village. When she came back she found her possessions stolen and her house burned to the ground; but she dug through the ashes, and unearthed the metal
Lauren Hendricks | Monday, April 2, 2012 at 8:51AM 
I was so excited a couple of weeks ago (March 16) to attend the formal launch of the CARE-Equity Bank-Orange cell phone savings group project in the Nyanza province of Kenya.
We worked with Equity Bank and Orange for six months to develop a joint product for Savings Groups. It was approved the week before the launch, and so far as I know, it’s the first time there has been a unique product designed for savings groups, where groups can save and borrow, using their cell phones, with the same level of transparency they are used to in their regular VSLAs. The new product enables Savings Groups to replace cash completely
Ignacio Mas and Kim Wilson | Monday, April 2, 2012 at 4:29AM 
Setting money aside for planned expenditures or for a rainy-day fund is tough if you are poor and you feel like you have a whole back-log of things you’d like to buy today. Saving requires active planning of what expenditures to forego and what saving vehicles to use. The selection of specific saving vehicles is driven by three high-level choices.
The first high-level choice is the balance between liquidity and discipline. Discipline is about making it hard for people to revisit prior savings decisions, whereas liquidity is about having the flexibility to meet changing goals and circumstances.
Paul Rippey | Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 6:25AM ;)
A consortium made up of Shenzhen Development Bank, the Hang Lung Group and Lenovo have announced a major initiative to bring savings groups to Africa on a scale never before imagined.
The group, through a joint venture called Virtual Sharing Resources Applications (VSRA), plans to introduce very low cost savings group kits with illustrated instruction sheets through retail outlets across the continent. They have set ambitious targets of ten million members in the first year, forty million in the second, and one hundred million in the third.
Kuria Wanjau | Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 6:00AM ;)
FSD Kenya has just published a short study of savings groups created under the Community Savings and Loans (COSALO I) project, funded by FSD Kenya and implemented by CARE International in Kenya. The survey was conducted in September 2011 among 54 groups representatively selected from about 2,500 groups.
Among the key findings was that replication was the norm, with the average
Kim Wilson | Monday, March 26, 2012 at 5:42AM 
Maria is 33, unmarried and has one child. She owns her own home. She is employed as a nanny, and also has a house cleaning business. She has both a personal checking and savings account. Luis is 30, unmarried and has no children. He rents a room from Maria.
Kim Wilson | Monday, March 26, 2012 at 4:45AM 
A Turkish student of mine tells this story:
In April 2007 I was to be married but did not have enough money to fund my wedding. My sister, Gulsuh Helvaci, lent me $2,275 in gold and asked that I repay her in gold as well. Frankly, I was shocked she had the funds so readily at hand.
Kim Wilson | Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 10:35AM ;)
In a previous post, I wrote about Rev. Duncan and his clever bank of 1810. Beyond providing an allowance for those out of work, his bank was creative in other ways, pressing into service rewards for specific behaviors.
Kim Wilson | Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 10:32AM ;)
Recently, while searching for examples of how banks may have helped customers level lumpy cash inflows into even cash outflows, I found this:
“When a depositor was unable to work the bank granted him a weekly allowance out of his own savings.”
The quote caught my attention