Susu (credit system)

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Susu is a type of private savings and loan association that operates underground and is particularly common in New York City among immigrants from Trinidad .

functionality

The Susu is one of the ROSCA (rotating savings and credit associations). The participants in a Susu are usually immigrants who do not have access to the normal banking and credit system. Often the participants are related to each other or belong to the same parish. The banker or collector responsible for the Susu organization is usually a woman. When the participants of a Susu get together, they first agree on the amount of the hand -mentioned amount of money that must be saved together by the participants. Each participant of the Susu then pays his / her proportional contribution to the Susu banker by hand for each round, for example weekly . The entire hand is paid out in full to a single participant per round. In the next round, another participant will get the entire hand . This is repeated until each participant has received a hand .

The Susu banker usually retains the first hand until the end in order to minimize the risk of default . New participants or those who do not always make their payments to the Susu banker on time usually only get the payout later. The whole system is based solely on trust, there are no written contracts.

legality

At the request of the magazine Die Zeit , the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) stated that a Susu is likely to be illegal, since a Susu is being set up as a criminal- purpose savings company, which is prohibited by the Banking Act . However, BaFin also admitted that as long as there was no written contract, no final statement could be made about the legality of the system. The Susu credit system is also likely illegal in the United States, and the New York Federal Reserve is unaware of this system.

distribution

Such systems of joint savings on a credit basis and the subsequent disbursement outside the regular banking system are known and widespread under various names not only in New York, but also in Ghana , Jamaica , Haiti , Grenada and Guyana .

Word origin

It is not certain where the word "Susu" comes from. However, it is believed that it comes from the word esusu (in the Yoruba language for to merge ). Another possibility would be that it is a corruption of the French coin sou .

Web links

literature

  • Sena A. Gabianu: The Susu Credit System: An Ingenious Way of Financing Business Outside of the Formal Banking System. In: The long-term perspective study of Sub-Saharan Africa. Volume 2: Economic and sectoral policy issues. 1990, ISBN 0-8213-1603-6 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alaine Low: A Bibliographical Survey of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations . 2nd Edition. Oxford 1999, ISBN 0-85598-298-5 , pp. 30 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Heike Buchter: Bank: Do you susu? In: ZEIT ONLINE. October 16, 2015, accessed October 17, 2015 .