Susu (informal loan club)

A susu or sou-sou or osusu or asue (also known as a merry-go-round,[1] Partner, or Pawdna in Jamaica;[2] sol in Haiti; [3], san in Dominican Republic,[4] and Njangi in Cameroon[5]) is a form of rotating savings and credit association, a type of informal savings club arrangement between a small group of people who take turns by throwing hand as the partners call it. The name is used in Africa (especially West Africa) and the Caribbean.[6] Each person contributes periodically the same amount to a common fund; the total contributions are disbursed to a single member of the group. Each time, the recipient changes so that eventually all members are recipients. Participants of a susu do not make a profit. Instead, small periodic contributions are turned into a larger lump sum of the same value, with the susu acting as a savings club.[7]

  1. ^ How To Buy A Goat When You're Really Poor? Join A "Merry-Go-Round"
  2. ^ "Jamaica's ROSCA: The Partner System"
  3. ^ "Haitian Informal Finance"
  4. ^ https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=dsi_pubs[l
  5. ^ "The Njangi: An African Financial Support System - African Vibes". 16 May 2019.
  6. ^ "Investor beware: Traditional African 'sou-sou' savings clubs have become the latest pyramid scheme". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2021-04-21.
  7. ^ Singletary, Michelle. "Perspective | Some Black promoters of illegal pyramid schemes are using the Black Lives Matter movement to justify 'sou-sou' scams". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-04-21.