Why do financial inclusion policies fail in mobilizing savings from the poor? Lessons from rural south India

Goedecke, Jann; Guérin, Isabelle; D’Espallier, Bert; Venkatasubramanian, Govindan

doi:10.1111/dpr.12272

Cited by 25 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(45 reference statements)

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“…The article makes three key points. Firstly, and in line with a growing body of ethnographic literature on rural indebtedness, we argue that microcredit can only be understood within the wider social context of debt and the range of credit sources that rural people access (Goedecke, Guérin, D'espallier, & Venkatasubramanian, 2018;Guérin, 2014). Secondly, evaluations of microcredit need to be located within cultural understandings of debt.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Good debts, bad debts: Microcredit and managing debt in rural south India

Carswell

Neve

Ponnarasu

2020

Journal of Agrarian Change

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This paper engages with debates around microcredit, once a development success story, but now much critiqued. Arguing that microcredit can only be understood within the wider context of debt, we draw on ethnographic material from two villages in Tamil Nadu, to examine how microcredit through self‐help groups sits within a broader context of indebtedness among the rural labouring classes. We describe patterns and sources of borrowing among the poor, the ways in which debts are managed, negotiated and settled within households and the ways in which the management of debt is mediated by gender, caste, class and aspiration. The paper calls for a more nuanced understanding of debt: some debts are seen as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad’. We explore the ways in which microcredit, channelled through self‐help groups, is—against much contemporary criticism—perceived by women borrowers in our study villages as a source of ‘good debt’ and praised as an enabling factor in their everyday household management as well as in aspirations for mobility and development. We also argue that microcredit can have positive impacts by enabling social investments that enhance status and reduce dependency.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Good debts, bad debts: Microcredit and managing debt in rural south India

Carswell

Neve

Ponnarasu

2020

Journal of Agrarian Change

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“…Comparación de ganancia entre la caja de ahorro familiar e institución financiera. de algunos académicos sobre que el sistema informal es para cubrir compromisos en un corto plazo (Rutherford, 1999;Robinson, 2004;Mavrenko, 2016;Flory, 2018;Goedecke et al, 2018).…”

Section: Cai Versus Institución Financiera Formalunclassified

“…Estos sistemas son caracterizados por la existencia de relaciones personales, operadores individuales, facilidad de acceso, procedimientos sencillos, transacciones rápidas, términos y montos flexibles en los préstamos. Por lo anterior, los mercados financieros informales son considerados omnipresentes (Robinson, 2004;Goedecke et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

“…La causa de que algunos individuos no puedan acceder a un sistema financiero formal es que se encuentran en situación de pobreza, y son atendidos por el sistema informal (prestamistas comerciales o profesionales, tenderos, comerciantes, terratenientes, familiares, amigos y vecinos) (Mutesasira, 1999;Mavrenko, 2016;Ostegaard et al, 2016;Goedecke et al, 2018). Este sistema es de acceso fácil y oportuno al crédito, pero con un costo muy alto, con tasas de interés que oscilan normalmente entre el 10% y 100%.…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

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Caja de ahorro informal, una opción de autoapoyo económico en sectores de bajos recursos

Marcelino-Aranda

Marcelino

Jasso

2020

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Introducción: La pobreza perjudica a las personas al limitarles la posibilidad de cubrir sus necesidades básicas, y en la mayoría de las ocasiones el acceso a los sistemas formales de financiamiento. Esta situación lleva a que las personas se organicen en estructuras de autoayuda comunitaria para poder acceder a servicios de ahorro y crédito. En aras de comprender las dinámicas de operación de estas estructuras de autoayuda, esta investigación permite conocer a detalle la operatividad de una caja de ahorro informal, los beneficios económicos que se generan al interior de sus participantes y sus similitudes con los datos de la Encuesta Nacional de Inclusión Financiera (ENIG) del año 2015.Método: Estudio descriptivo con un método cualitativo de estudio de caso. El trabajo de campo se llevó in situ por 50 semanas. Análisis de documentos y registros internos, aplicación de entrevistas, cuestionarios y observación directa.Resultados: El 50% de los integrantes de la Caja de Ahorro Informal utilizan el dinero para el pago de deudas versus el 33% del nivel nacional. Las mujeres son quienes utilizan sus ahorros y ganancias para aumentar su masa de rendimiento a través de la inversión o creación de micronegocios. Las personas que obtuvieron una mayor tasa pasiva fueron del 32% y la menor del 21%. Entre los 22 miembros de la CAI se obtuvo un ahorro de $160,100.00 con un monto de préstamos de $255,500.00.Discusión o Conclusión: La demanda de servicios financieros de la población de bajos ingresos no atendida por la banca comercial propicia el surgimiento de entidades al margen de las estructuras formales del mercado financiero. Estos sistemas informales ofrecen servicios flexibles de ahorro y crédito acorde a las necesidades y expectativas de sus integrantes.

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“…A second, closely related factor is the 'comparative advantage' of prevailing informal saving practices, to quote the economists. We have discussed elsewhere the social, cultural and political factors for the persistence of informal saving, particularly in gold (Guérin et al 2018, Goedecke et al 2018; see also Joseph 2018). It is less common to consider ceremonies as saving, as we propose here.…”

Section: Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rethinking saving: Indian ceremonial gifts as relational and reproductive saving

Venkatasubramanian

Kumar

2019

Journal of Cultural Economy

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Economic anthropology has long advocated a broader vision of savings than the vision proposed by economists. This article extends this redefinitional effort by examining ceremonial gifts in India and arguing that they are a specific form of savings. Rural households, including those at the bottom of the pyramid, do save, in the sense of storing, accumulating and circulating value. But this takes place via particular forms of mediation that allow savers to forge or maintain social and emotional relations, to keep control over value-what matters in people's livesand over spaces and their own future. We propose terming these practices relational and reproductive saving, insofar as their main objective is to sustain life across generations. By contrast, trying to encourage saving via bank mediation may dispossess populations of control over their wealth, their socialization, their territories and their time. In an increasingly financialised world of evermore aggressive policies to push people into financial inclusion, the social, symbolic, cultural and political aspects of diverse forms of financial mediation deserve our full attention.

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Why do financial inclusion policies fail in mobilizing savings from the poor? Lessons from rural south India

Cited by 25 publications

References 33 publications

Good debts, bad debts: Microcredit and managing debt in rural south India

Good debts, bad debts: Microcredit and managing debt in rural south India

Caja de ahorro informal, una opción de autoapoyo económico en sectores de bajos recursos

Rethinking saving: Indian ceremonial gifts as relational and reproductive saving

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