Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and photos
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Acknowledgements
- one Migrants, money and exclusion
- two Changing financial landscapes: public policy responses to financial exclusion in the UK
- three Mapping migrants’ financial lives in London
- four Strategising for banking inclusion
- five Coping with savings and credit exclusion: alternative practices of reciprocity and trust
- six Transnational money: the formalisation of migrant remittances
- seven Looking forward: from exclusion to inclusion and back?
- Appendix: Methodological note
- References
- Index
five - Coping with savings and credit exclusion: alternative practices of reciprocity and trust
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of tables, figures and photos
- List of abbreviations and acronyms
- Acknowledgements
- one Migrants, money and exclusion
- two Changing financial landscapes: public policy responses to financial exclusion in the UK
- three Mapping migrants’ financial lives in London
- four Strategising for banking inclusion
- five Coping with savings and credit exclusion: alternative practices of reciprocity and trust
- six Transnational money: the formalisation of migrant remittances
- seven Looking forward: from exclusion to inclusion and back?
- Appendix: Methodological note
- References
- Index
Summary
“We Somalis have a culture, that if someone is facing problems or needs help then people who are in a better situation or able to help will help them and it is not a loan. If they need help and you are able to help them then you are expected to contribute and would do so.” (Abtee, Somali man)
There is growing academic consensus that financially excluded households engage in diverse money management practices, thus contradicting a perception that they do not or cannot save or draw credit, and that they progress from informal to formal financial practices (Leyshon and Thrift, 1995; Matin et al 2002; Collins, 2005). Detailed investigations of household economies reveal the management of money outside or alongside formal banking systems through the development of ‘mix and match’ financial practices (Rutherford, 2002). These ‘diverse’, ‘informal’ and ‘alternative’ practices, as they are variously labelled, entail saving and borrowing from a range of sources and are premised upon the development of relationships with individuals, groups and institutions and a reliance upon both market and nonmarket financial services that are offered by regulated and unregulated providers (Rutherford, 1999; Ruthven, 2002; Kempson and Finney, 2006; UN, 2006; Bryne et al, 2007; Stenning et al, 2010a). Shaped simultaneously by exclusion from formal financial organisations as well as by the availability of alternative financial instruments and services that enable poor households to capitalise themselves, these practices are mediated by households’ socioeconomic status, their agency and the assets at their disposal, financial knowledge and geographies, which collectively result in the creation of distinctive ‘financial ecologies’ (Ford and Rowlingson, 1996; Stenning et al, 2010a).
While preceding chapters have focused upon the formal financial lives of migrants and predominantly focused upon banking, this chapter details their more diverse savings and credit-related practices, which rely upon unregulated market and non-market services. These practices are particularly significant in facilitating migrants’ access to financial resources, given that even while the majority of men and women are banked, their access to formal credit, and to a lesser extent, savings instruments is far less secure (see Chapter Three). Organised in two parts, the chapter begins by considering informal savings and credit-related practices, which are undertaken on an individual and one-to-one basis and range from saving cash at home, the conversion of cash savings into gold, reciprocal borrowing and lending, as well as the (limited) interactions of migrant men and women with unregulated credit providers including moneylenders and pawn brokers.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Migrants and their MoneySurviving Financial Exclusion in London, pp. 117 - 140Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012