Formal financial institutions inadequately distribute startup capital to business ventures of ethnic minorities, women, low-educated, and young people. Self-financing groups fill this gap because in these associations agents accumulate their savings into a fund that is later used to provide...

The purpose of this report is to give an overview of the contents of the SAVIX database as of December 2017. Starting with a brief background of savings groups,2 the report provides information on the geographical distribution of the savings groups in the database and group characteristics, such...