Seeking social security through non-formal savings schemes

DOHA: Banks along the Grand Hamad Street, popularly known as the Bank Street, are closed on Fridays, but financial transactions of a different type take place here on this weekly day off, as low-income workers from their living quarters in the Industrial Area and elsewhere literally descend here in hordes, with several groups running traditional savings schemes on the sly.
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The transactions are in hundreds of riyals, unlike the millions and billions the banks dispense on weekdays.
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In small open grounds on both sides of the Grand Hamad Avenue, low-income workers mainly from Nepal converge by the hundreds on Fridays and many of them can be seen sitting in groups and writing their versions of books of account.
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These groups run conventional savings schemes on the sly, and the membership is through invitation and strictly for those who either come from the same place back in Nepal or for people known closely to the group. A group usually has 10 to 15 members but larger groups of 30 have also been sighted. Members contribute a fixed sum (QR100, in most cases) to a common pool every month. And each month a different member receives money from the fund collected that month.
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