Mukando and chilimba: how rotating savings groups work in Zimbabwe and Zambia
A mukando (Shona, plural mikando) is a rotating savings group in Zimbabwe. Members agree to contribute the same amount at a set interval, and each round one member receives the whole collection. The cycle continues until everyone has received it once. People also call the group rounds in English, which describes the way the money goes round.
In Zambia the same idea is called a chilimba, a word from Bemba and Nyanja-speaking communities. The structure is the same: a fixed group, a fixed contribution, and one person taking the pot each round. Groups are usually made up of neighbours, relatives or colleagues who know each other.
No interest is charged or paid. A member who receives early gets money for school fees, rent, a funeral, seed or fertiliser, or stock for a small business, and pays it back through later contributions. A member who receives late has saved the whole time.
How does a mukando work?
- The group agrees who is in, how much each person contributes, and how often: weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
- The order of who receives when is agreed at the start. Many groups draw it, while others go by need.
- Each round every member pays in, in cash, by bank transfer or by a mobile money wallet.
- The member whose turn it is receives the whole round. When everyone has been paid once, the group can finish or start a new cycle.
Some groups keep a small fund for emergencies, or charge a late fee to deter missed payments. If your group does this, agree the rule before the first round and write it down.
Why do people use them?
Rotating groups are one practical way people save and borrow without a bank. They need no account, no collateral and no credit check. The group also keeps members accountable to one another, because everybody depends on everybody else paying on time.
What goes wrong?
- A member stops paying after receiving. The members who are still waiting lose out. This is why groups usually start with people who know each other well.
- Late or missed payments. One late contribution delays the next payout, and the organizer is left to chase people.
- Lost or disputed records. A notebook, or a chat group, is hard to check months later. When two members remember a payment differently, there is no way to settle it.
- Trust in the organizer. When one person holds the money and the record, members have to trust that person completely. A shared, dated record protects the organizer as much as the members.
How do you keep the record with Savings Circle?
- Create the group. Choose “Savings circle” as the name type, or use your own name for the mukando or chilimba. Set the currency (US dollar is supported) and what each person pays per round.
- Add members from your contacts. They don’t need to 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 was not changed.
- Record payments as they come in, by cash, bank or mobile money, with a screenshot as proof if you like. It works offline and syncs when you are back online.
- Remind the late ones. One tap opens WhatsApp, SMS or Telegram with a polite message ready to send.
- 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 Zimbabwe a mukando is also called a round, and in Zambia a chilimba. In Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho the same kind of group is a stokvel, a motshelo or a stokfela. Elsewhere it is a susu in Ghana, a chama in Kenya, a tanda in Mexico and a paluwagan in the Philippines. Economists call all of these rotating savings and credit associations, or ROSCAs.
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