SAVINGS COLLECTORS AND FINANCIAL INTERMEDIATION IN GHANA / LES COLLECTEURS D'EPARGNE ET L'INTERMÉDIATION FINANCIÉRE AU GHANA

Individual savings collectors play an important role in mobilizing savings from households and microentrepreneurs and to have substantial potential for financial intermediation in some African countries. Savers are willing to pay for the convenience and security of collectors coming to their work places and accumulating their daily savings over a month, or sometimes longer periods. Collectors sometimes provide advances, but their lending capacity is severely limited by their lack of assets and of access to credit. This informal system is evolving through linkages to the formal banking system that enable savings collectors to intermediate as well as mobilize savings and through application of their methods by semi-formal institutions. LES COLLECTEURS D'EPARGNE ET ^INTERMEDIATION FINANCIERE AU GHANA