NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Boston, MA/Washington, D.C., March 4, 2014 – Accion, a pioneer and leader in microfinance and financial inclusion, today announced an investment in digital savings company eMoneyPool (EMP) through its Venture Lab, a $10 million initiative dedicated to providing seed capital and management support to financial inclusion start-ups.

Savings circles – groups of people who save together and take turns accessing the collective savings, also known by names like “chamas,” “tandas,” “ROSCAs,” and more– have for centuries enabled millions of customers lacking access to formal banking to save together and take small loans from those shared savings. Building off of the success of traditional circles, EMP is formalizing and digitizing savings pools in order to make them more accessible and convenient to use for a greater number of people.