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Chapter 7: Savings and Trust
7.1
Introduction
One unique feature of SHG groups is the “compulsory savings”. Members save for
various reasons, some to accumulate capital at the end of a fixed period, others to benefit
from getting interest from the same or from getting loans from the members accumulated
savings. However the small frequent savings that these members accumulate is built on
the trust that they will have access to these funds when they require the same. In this
chapter, we address the following research questions:
“Does pooling of thrift / savings by its members help develop building trust and
ownership in SHGs?” (TOR 1) and “Does this impact group dynamics? What is the effect
of voluntary savings on lending, bank linkages etc?” (TOR 8)
7.2
Does saving induce trust among members?
Savings among SHG members have played a very important role in building trust and
relationships among the members of the group. More than 97% of SHG members in
Tamil Nadu and nearly 70% of SHG members in Karnataka believe that the act of
pooling savings together has resulted in increased trust among members (figure 7.1).
Almost 96% of SHG members in Tamil Nadu perceived the role of managing their
savings has resulted in a sense of strong ownership of their SHGs while 69% agreed
managing savings enhanced their sense of ownership in Karnataka. On the other hand,
over 16% disagreed and around 14% were ambivalent to the role managing savings and
its influence on sense of ownership as shown in Figure 7.2.
