The Poor and Their Money
a site about experiments in delivering basic money-management services that poor and very poor people value

Buy The Poor and Their Money, Rutherford's groundbreaking book; The Pledge, his book about the history of ASA and the microfinance movement in Bangladesh; and Portfolios of the Poor, the new bestselling analysis of how the world's poor live on $2 a day, co-authored by Rutherford, at amazon.com

you are in the Home page
So far, three different kinds of Product are undergoing testing in Hrishipara. All  three respond to poor people`s need to build savings in the face of acute shortages of money. The products test different ways of helping people to save while providing them with access to liquidity through loans. On the Products page you can find progress reports on each of them.
In 1996 Rutherford founded SafeSave, a money management service for the slum-dwellers of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Unlike other microfinance banks, SafeSave does not focus on credit for micro-business, but on basic savings and loan services for managing life on a day-to-day basis. There are no groups, no joint liability, and clients receive a visit from a bank worker every working day.
Hrishipara is a village in central Bangladesh. In 2002 Rutherford founded a rural version of SafeSave there called Shohoz Shonchoy. It develops and tests innovative approaches to money management services for poor and very poor villagers.
Home       Background: Ideas  & Writings      The Book        SafeSave        Hrishipara        The Products      Get in touch      Blog
latest news, April 2009: a review of Product P9 after 24 months of action: March 2009: latest audit
 
The Background to the experiments is the work of Stuart Rutherford, who has researched how poor people manage their money, worldwide, for thirty years.

His Book, The Poor and Their Money  was updated and republished in 2009. It sets out what poor people need in the way of money management services, how they struggle to access useful services, and what modern `microfinance` practitioners can learn from them.