How a committee works, and how to run one without the notebook
A committee is a rotating savings group common in Pakistan and India, where it is also called a BC (bisi). A group of people agrees to pay the same amount every month into one pot, and each month one member takes the whole pot. It runs until every member has had a turn, so a ten-member committee lasts ten months.
Nobody earns interest and nobody pays any. Members who take their turn early get what is effectively an interest-free loan; members who take it late get a disciplined way to save. That is why committees are used for weddings, school fees, a motorbike, rent deposits or stock for a shop.
How does a committee work?
- An organizer, often the most trusted person in the family, office or street, gathers members and agrees the amount and the day it is due.
- The order of turns is fixed at the start, usually by drawing names on slips of paper.
- Every month each member pays the organizer, in cash, by bank transfer or by mobile wallet such as JazzCash, Easypaisa or UPI.
- The organizer hands the full pot to that month’s member, and the cycle continues until everyone has been paid once.
Many committees let a member with an emergency, such as a wedding or an illness, swap turns with someone who agrees. Some groups split one share between two people who each pay half.
How is the order of turns decided?
Most committees draw names at the first meeting. Others give early turns to members who need money first, or to the organizer as thanks for the work. Whatever the method, the order should be agreed in front of everyone and written down, because arguments about who was “supposed” to go first are the most common way a committee falls apart.
A committee is different from a registered chit fund. In India, chit funds that run turns by auction are regulated businesses under the Chit Funds Act, 1982. A committee among family, friends or colleagues is an informal arrangement between people who know each other.
What goes wrong in a committee?
- A member stops paying after taking the pot. This is the biggest risk. It is why organizers pick members they know well and why the record of who has already been paid matters.
- Late payments. The member due to receive the pot has to wait, and the organizer often covers the gap from their own pocket.
- Lost or disputed records. A notebook can be lost or changed. When two members remember a payment differently, there is nothing to settle it.
How do you run a committee with Savings Circle?
- Create the group. Choose “committee” as its name type, then set the currency and what each person pays per round. The app uses your word on every screen and reminder.
- Add members from your contacts. They don’t install anything.
- Set the order. Run a random draw in front of everyone, or enter the order you agreed. A random draw saves its seed, so anyone can check later that it wasn’t changed. Members can ask to swap turns, and the swap is recorded too.
- Record payments as they come in, by cash, bank or mobile wallet, with a screenshot as proof if you like. It works offline and syncs later.
- Remind the late ones. One tap opens WhatsApp, SMS or Telegram with a polite message in their language.
- Record each payout. Every entry is dated. A correction is added as a new entry, and the original stays in the history.
Savings Circle never holds or moves money. Members pay each other the way they already do; the app is the shared record of who paid, who is next and what is owed.
Other names for the same idea
In Pakistan and India it is called a committee or BC; in parts of India a kitty (as in kitty party). Around the world the same system is a tanda in Mexico, a susu in Ghana, a chama in Kenya, an arisan in Indonesia and a paluwagan in the Philippines. Economists call all of these rotating savings and credit associations, or ROSCAs. Savings Circle works for any of them.
How does a committee work money?
Committee money, or a committee saving scheme, works in three steps: everyone pays the same amount each month, one member takes the whole pot, and the turn passes on until everyone has had one. Nobody earns interest on it, and nothing is held back. People in Pakistan often call the same arrangement a kameti, and the Savings Circle app keeps the record of who paid and whose turn is next.
Guides
- South Asia: committee, kameti, chit fund, bhishi, kitty party and samity
- Africa: susu, chama, ajo, adashe, equb, hagbad, stokvel, tontine, mukando and chilimba
- The Americas and the Caribbean: sou-sou, tanda, junta, lending circle and pardner
- Asia and the Pacific: arisan, paluwagan and hụi
- The Arab world: jam’iya