How a susu works, and how to keep one on track
A susu is a rotating savings group that comes from West Africa, especially Ghana, and travelled to the Caribbean and the diaspora, where it is often spelled sou-sou. Members pay a fixed amount on a fixed day, and each round one member receives the whole pot. It keeps going until everyone has received it once.
No interest is charged or earned. It is a way to save with the discipline of a group, and to get a lump sum sooner than you could save it alone.
How does a susu work?
- An organizer, sometimes called the banker, brings together people who trust each other and agrees the amount and the schedule: weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
- The order of payouts is set at the start.
- Each round every member pays the organizer, in cash, by bank transfer or by mobile money.
- The organizer passes the full pot to that round’s member, until everyone has had a turn.
In Ghana, “susu” also names a different service: a susu collector who takes small daily deposits from traders and returns them at the end of the month, keeping about one day’s deposit as a fee. This guide is about the rotating group, where members pay each other and nobody charges a fee.
How is the order decided?
Groups draw lots, go by who joined first, or let members who need money early take the first turns. The method matters less than agreeing it openly and keeping a record everyone can see.
What goes wrong in a susu?
- A member who has been paid stops contributing. Those still waiting carry the loss.
- Late payments leave the next member short on the day they were counting on.
- No shared record. When only the organizer knows who paid, every question becomes a question of trust.
How do you run a susu with Savings Circle?
- Create the group. Choose “susu” 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
It is susu in Ghana, sou-sou in Trinidad and Tobago, and partner or pardner in Jamaica and the UK. The same system is a committee in Pakistan and India, a tanda in Mexico, 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.
Read this guide in other languages: ¿Qué es el susu? (Spanish), or susu kya hai (Hindi).
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