Microfinance

Why microsavings might be better

By Dweep Chanana ⋅ January 14, 2010 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

David Roodman’s excellent Open Book blog posts over new year provide validation that the pendulum of public opinion is moving away from microcredit and towards microsavings. First, it is great to read another microcredit skeptic. He also points to persistent concerns about a bubble in the Indian microfinance industry, an issue raised here earlier. And finally, there is the evidence from recent studies that weakens the link between microfinance and poverty, consumption, and enterprise development.

On the other hand, NYTimes microfinance evangelist Nicholas Kristof recently called for a “savings revolution”. To back up that call to arms, Rodman points to a great study on the impact of microsavings. That study, by Dupas and Robinson from rural Kenya, is an exciting read for it shows that despite negative rates of return on savings accounts, rural women both love savings accounts and seem to benefit from them:

We find that, about 6 months after having gained access to the account, the daily private expenditures of women sampled for the account were, on average, 37 to 44% higher than those of women in the comparison group. Their average daily food expenditures were 14-29% higher.

Why do savings accounts work so well? The study points out this may be because women without accounts “may be tempted to spend any cash that they hold” and because “it may be difficult to refuse requests for money.” In other words, savings accounts bring discipline to consumption patterns.

There is an interesting parallel with microcredit here. Recent studies of microfinance show that microcredit tends to smooth out consumption – allowing people to purchase consumer goods (TVs, refrigerators) that they would not be able to pay for up front. No doubt, microsavings can help individuals do the same – consumer more. However, there is a huge difference in the dynamics of how that consumption happens. In the case of microsavings, individuals are spending past income. In the case of microcredit, individuals are spending future income – money they neither have nor can risk loosing.

This also leads us to another benefit of microsavings – it acts as insurance in times of illnes. This is another “suggestive finding” of the Dupas and Robinson study:

We find that individuals are not fully protected from income risk. In particular, our logbooks show that, over the period of study, women in the control group were forced to draw down their working capital in response to health shocks. Women sampled for the savings account, however, were less likely to reduce their business investment levels when dealing with a health shock and were better able to smooth their labor supply over illness. In particular, women in the treatment group were more likely to be able to afford medical expenses for more serious illness episodes.

Finally, there is reason to believe that microsavings might be better business as well. For one, it requires no startup capital – which is provided by the clients themselves. Second, the cost of providing credit should actually be higher that for provision of savings – because accepting savings does not require doing a credit check. And finally, operational costs should also be similar or lower.

That logic brings us full circle. Microsavings do much the same for the poor as microcredit (i.e. smooth consumption and investment). And they do so at a lower cost. So why not replace microcredit with microsavings – which seems to be microcredit at a lower cost and with insurance built in.

For more, read Financial Inclusion in India and Do Rural Banks Matter.

Tags: development, microlending, microsavings, poverty