Publications and Resources
Highlight: Financialization and the Moral Economy: Lessons from Non-Intermediated Credit Relationships
Elise M. Dermineur & Yane Svetiev
This paper provides a cross-disciplinary contribution on the related topics of the moral economy and the process of financialization. By financialization we mean the notion that the growth of financial intermediation means that the financial sector becomes disembedded and disconnected from the real economy through (i) formalization (via reliance on formal instruments and enforcement) at the expense of economic relationships underpinned by trust and, by corollary, (ii) the growing use of novel financial instruments. A key purpose of the financial sector is to facilitate the provision of credit in the economy precisely by enabling transactions and innovating mechanisms for ensuring cooperation and maintaining trust. At the same time, this intermediation role in itself creates agency problems, whereby actors involved in the intermediation process pursue their own self-interest, which is not necessarily congruent to either of the transacting parties in the credit relationship. As a result, the disconnection between the financial sector and the “economy” occurs through two channels: the growing reliance on more formal impersonal mechanisms of trust and the possibility for financial sector actors to pursue their own interests over those of the parties to a credit relationship. Technology (such as information technology) can contribute to the process of disembedding because it can facilitate innovative financial products, which can fuel both channels described above.
Stokvel: A Lesson from Zululand
A film by Marie-Lise Perrin
Stokvel: A Lesson from Zululand is a documentary that delves into one of South Africa’s most widespread yet underappreciated economic practices: the stokvel. Official figures suggest that around 23% of South Africans are members of a stokvel, with an estimated 811,830 active groups nationwide. But behind these numbers lies a much larger reality—researchers estimate that over 70% of South Africa’s adult population may participate in stokvel-related activities in some form.
Filmed in rural Zululand, the documentary spotlights women-led stokvels, highlighting the central role women play as the most numerous and engaged members. Through their stories, the film captures the vitality, resilience, and ingenuity embedded in these grassroots financial networks.
Stokvels—known globally as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs)—are informal self-help groups where members contribute regular sums of money, taking turns to receive the collective pot. Though each group sets its own rules and goals, all rely on one core principle: mutual trust. There is no external regulation, no intermediaries, and no financial institutions involved—only peer-to-peer cooperation governed by social norms and collective accountability. Stokvels are often used to cover essential needs like funeral expenses, groceries, or even small-scale investments, offering a powerful alternative to formal banking systems.
Recorded in July 2019 in KwaZulu-Natal, the film follows a team of researchers investigating these informal credit circles and what they reveal about community-driven economies.
Directed by Marie-Lise Perrin
Script by Elise M. Dermineur Reuterswärd, Unathi Kolanisi, and Marie-Lise Perrin
Field assistance by Ishmael Iwara, Igor Martins, and Andile Mthembu
Music by Vawuki
Events
Informal Credit Markets: Then and Now
Workshop, January 21-23, 2020 Umeå University, Sweden
In preindustrial Europe, long before the rise of modern banking, most financial transactions took place within tight-knit communities through informal, peer-to-peer credit networks. These exchanges were largely based on verbal agreements, rarely involving written contracts or institutional oversight. Credit flowed through relationships built on trust, fairness, and mutual support—regulated not by the state or banks, but by deeply rooted social norms.
In early modern England, nearly 90% of transactions are believed to have been conducted on credit. In Sweden, informal lending between individuals remained dominant well into the 19th century, coexisting with the early development of banking. This was not simply due to a chronic shortage of cash but also because local communities had created resilient systems of mutual aid. These markets were flexible, personal, and adaptive—embedded in the social fabric of daily life.
Today, similar informal credit markets continue to play a vital role in the financial systems of many developing countries. Where formal banking fails to reach, informal systems thrive. Peer-to-peer lending, especially through Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), provides crucial access to credit for millions. In these groups, participants make regular contributions to a communal fund, which is then distributed to members in turn. Every ROSCA is unique, shaped by its own rules and purposes, but all rely on the same foundation: mutual responsibility and trust.
Just like their historical counterparts, ROSCAs operate entirely outside the purview of the state or formal institutions. There are no intermediaries—only community-driven cooperation. These systems enable members to save for everything from groceries to funerals to small-scale investments. Enforcement is built into the system: social norms ensure participation, contribution, and repayment.
In South Africa, where access to formal financial services remains unequal, informal credit networks are especially widespread. Approximately 800,000 ROSCAs—locally known as stokvels—exist across the country, collectively managing an estimated 33 billion SEK annually. Women are often at the center of these networks, playing leading roles in organizing, sustaining, and expanding them.
What is striking is not only the endurance of these informal systems but also their evolution. Today, many stokvels coordinate via WhatsApp or Facebook groups. In 2017, the first blockchain-based ROSCA was launched using smart contracts on the Ethereum network. As digital innovations reshape how people organize, save, and lend, the very definition and function of informal markets is shifting.
Yet this evolution brings tension. In places like South Africa, governments increasingly view informal credit markets with suspicion—dismissing them as outdated, risky, or even gateways to financial crime. Efforts to formalize, regulate, or eliminate these systems echo the broader historical pattern of imposing standardized models of exchange, often at the expense of flexibility and local relevance.
Meanwhile, in countries like Sweden, the rapid transition to digital currencies, such as the proposed e-krona, raises new questions. Could a fully cashless society signal the end of informal credit altogether? Can blockchain technologies replicate the social trust and adaptability that define ROSCAs and their predecessors? What happens to the fabric of community when exchange becomes fully depersonalized?
Purpose of the Symposium
This interdisciplinary symposium explores the evolution, structure, and social functions of informal credit markets—from early modern Europe to today's blockchain-driven innovations. Drawing together historians, economists, anthropologists, and development scholars, we aim to compare practices across time and geography, and to examine the enduring significance of peer-based finance.
Key themes include:
The architecture of informal financial networks
Circulation of wealth and credit flows
Gender dynamics in credit participation
The relationship between informal and formal financial institutions
The implications of emerging technologies like cryptocurrencies and digital currencies
By revisiting historical practices and examining current innovations, this symposium offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the past and future of informal credit systems. As technology transforms finance, we ask: what do we stand to lose, and what can we still learn, from these deeply social, trust-based financial networks?
Keynote: The Black Banker Ladies, Caroline Shenaz Hossein
Workshop, January 21-23, 2020 Umeå University, Sweden
The Black Banker Ladies: Vanguards of the Social and Solidarity Economy, Mutual Aid & Rotating Savings and Credit Associations
Caroline Shenaz Hossein is an associate professor of business & society at the Department of Social Science, York University, Toronto.
Black and racialized women known as the Banker Ladies engage in social and solidarity economy through a specific form of it known as mutual aid–formally referred to as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs)–to meet their livelihood and social needs. ROSCAs are an ancient form of banking groups that fall under the category of mutual aid groups, which are cooperatively organized and members decide on the rules and make regular contributions to a fund that is given in whole or in part to each member in turn.
The voices of hundreds of Banker Ladies educate us about how they contribute to social economics. They are the vanguards of mutual aid and economic cooperation. What is most impressive is that they do not compete for attention about how they make finance inclusive; instead, they quietly set out to pragmatically do the work. They collect monies in their locales through comradery, democratic systems, and trust networks often in communities where outsiders imagine that this sort of banking would not be possible.
The Black Banker Ladies continue an ancient banking practice that they have seen done before them and they help others replicate and strengthen mutual aid, and economic cooperation in communities worldwide.
List of publications
Elise M. Dermineur, 2018. Rethinking Debt: The Evolution of Private Credit Markets in Preindustrial France, in Social science history, Vol. 42, (2) : 317-342
Svetiev, Y., Dermineur, E. & Kolanisi, U. Financialization and Sustainable Credit: Lessons from Non-Intermediated Transactions?. J Consum Policy 45, 673–698 (2022). https://doi-org.ezp.sub.su.se/10.1007/s10603-022-09529-0.
In Progress:
Elise Dermineur, Economic Justice, Social Norms and Communities, book manuscript in progress
Ishmael Iwara, 2020. Towards A Model For Successful Enterprises Centred on Exogenous and Endogenous Attributes of an Entrepreneur: Case of Vhembe District, South Africa. Dissertation. University of Venda.
Ishmael Iwara, 2020. Digital Informal Rotative Savings/Investment Stokvel Practices: Life Experience of Students in a Rural-based University in South Africa. Forthcoming book chapter.
B.A theses:
Helin Bäckman Kartal, 2019. How to empower a country using informal financial systems: Stokvels, the South African economical saviour. Umeå University.
Andile Mthembu, 2019. Exploring the attributes of the local based socio-economic mechanisms (informal financial systems) on transforming the well-being of women in the northern region of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. University of Zululand.
Blog posts:
Elise Dermineur, 2025, Before banks: Historical lessons for rethinking credit https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/banks-historical-lessons-rethinking-credit
Daivi Rodima-Taylor and Elise Dermineur Reuterswärd, Informal Financial Markets: History, Ethnography, Technology. Back Channels, Society for Social Studies of Science 2020
https://www.4sonline.org/blog/post/informal_financial_markets
Webinar:
Elise Dermineur Reuterswärd & Unathi Kolanisi https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=181532163281787&extid=l8OJntRBVc68uE5F
Podcast Episode:
Elise Dermineur Reuterswärd, Banking Before banks https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-vqmg6-10f8367
