Small, Short and Unsecured

"If any single book inspired my own writing it is this one. When I got back to London from my Managua work in 1974, I searched the libraries, with little success, for books on how poor people in developing countries manage their money. Then somebody told me about F J A (Fritz) Bouman. Of his several books, I like Short, Small and Unsecured best. It takes a small area of western India and looks closely at how the money goes round. It delves deliciously deeply into things like how the pawnbroking business works, and exactly how poor farmers get together to set up savings and loans clubs. The book was written in 1989 but the same lessons still apply: poor people’s need for financial tools is even more intense than that of richer people, since, by virtue of their small and unreliable incomes, they are more often driven to find ways of using past income (through savings) or future income (through loans) to finance current expenditure, whether it is on food and shelter, or health and welfare, or assets or businesses, or whatever."