Rotating savings and credit associations (RoSCAs) are, next to moneylenders, the most prevalent type of informal finance around the world. In 1988, Seibel & Shrestha traced the evolution of the dhikuti, as RoSCAs are called in Nepal, and published the results under the title Dhikuti: The Small...

Informal financial institutions (IFIs), among them the ubiquitous rotating savings and credit associations, are of ancient origin. Owned and self-managed by local people, poor and non-poor, they are self-help organizations which mobilize their own resources, cover their costs and finance their...