Chama Online Management System (Coms)

ABSTRACT

Over the weekend while chatting way forward with friends, on how we could invest or venture

into business, someone mentioned something about the table banking concept. Interestingly I

realized from the conversation, most of us didn’t understand it at all. I mean, what is it anyway?

How does It work? How is it different from the chama (informal saving and investments groups)

concept we know so well here in Kenya?

I remember for example some of my friends in Campus who had Chama’s for raving. They used

to put money together and used part of it for the night. This helped them save and control their

expenditure. They usually went out as a group and at the end of the semester they would divide

the savings plus the interest earned from loaning. (Remember that these were the days when most

of us were broke university and college students).According to Growth hub article Chama Pesa-

The Social Savings System: Quick Fact Sheet, Kenya has approximately 1.2 million Chama’s,

the registered ones are 300,000 and an estimated 900,000 unregistered Chama’s. Registered

Chama’s are known to manage about $4 billion per year in member savings, an average of

$11,000 per Chama. 12 million Kenyans (33%) are members of Chama’s and many are members

of more than one Chama simultaneously. Milele alliance, Mapato Groupand Awesome group are

examples of successful Chamas which have wealth and influence in Kenya.

Joyful Women Organization ,an NGO providing financial resources to women to engage in

livelihood projects through table banking concept, started in 2009 with a handful of groups. The

program has now grown to 431 groups and 10,000 women who have accumulated a total of over

100,000,000 Kenyan shillings or over $1 million which they put to work in a wide variety of

income generating projects. Salonist and Mpesa shop owner, is a good example as one

beneficiary of table banking .She started off with a small salon, from the loan she had taken from

the group. She managed to pay back in four months then opted to take a much bigger amount so

as to venture into boda boda business by buying one motorbike. Right now she owns three

motorcycles and a taxi, which all of them gives her an average of 4,000 kshs per day. Her

success and financial stability is as a result of the group she joined 4 years ago, which has helped

her family build a house and educate children.