Esquemas de Stokvels em Apoio ao Empreendedorismo na África do Sul

The book entitled: Stokvels schemes in support of entrepreneurship in South Africa is a chef d¿oeuvre of two blacks¿ academics that have done tremendous research on African entrepreneurship. According to the authors, it was thought that as more people in the Black communities became exposed to formal financial institutions the popularity of stokvels would fade, which did not happen. The current trend is that stokvels and formal financial institutions are used together. It is reported that 14% of bank account holders are stokvel members. Stokvels remain institutions that exchange millions of Rands in the informal markets and are the biggest generator of informal funds for small entrepreneurs in South Africa. Stokvels seem to be dominated by women and represent a mechanism which women are ingeniously exploiting to generate funds for survival. Over time stokvels developed into a system of highly diversified savings and credit organisations to suit the needs of all income groups. They have become known as such a strong intermediary in the informal financial sector that the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) included them in the regulatory framework of financial institutions in 1994.