committee
The committee system is extremely popular in the Pakistan as it appears to be fairly straight-forward and saves people the hassle of formal paperwork. Few decades ago, committee was common among housewives only but now teachers, office going men and women, shopkeepers and blue collared workers are also using this mode of saving. The system of committee is deeply entrenched in our society. Many banks, DFIs and other financial institutions do offer lucrative saving options but all their offers fail to pull the people away from committee system.
Majority of Pakistan’s population due to their own perceptions and cultural background prefer to stay away from the banking system. Public’s lack of interest in the banking system can be judged from the fact that till now only a little over 20% of Pakistanis have official bank accounts.
Interestingly, committee system is also class based. People in upper strata of society use their committee for travelling, shopping and other leisure related matters whereas those belonging to the lower strata use savings for more basic purpose such as collecting dowry for their daughters, buying motorcycle, carrying home repair or in some situation even use this amount for pending medical expenditure.
Analysing people’s love for committee, Halima Iqbal, an investment banker by profession and Farwah Tapal, a design strategist, joins hands to form Oraan Committee, a collaborative platform for group savings. In other words, Oraan is a digital saving community for all women of Pakistan who want to achieve their goals through savings.
Talking about this initiative, Halima shares, “I started off my career as an investment banker and moved on to do consulting for bank-backed Fintech products in North America, along with working on a food tech startup in Toronto. I moved back to Pakistan after a decade in Nov 2017. In the summer of 2018, we (Farwah and I) decided to take up research to understand why savings to GDP is so low in Pakistan compared to other nations – hence Oraan community was born.”
“Oraan is Pakistan's first digital savings platform established with a vision to make money simple and accessible to everyone, anyone so that financial goals are easily achievable. One of the most important thing for us was to get the dialogue going - while we, women, openly talk about everything now, there is no one safe space to talk about money as a community, to learn from each other, and save with each other too,” elaborates Halima about the motivation behind starting Oraan community.
The purpose of this Facebook group is to create a safe space for women to talk about matters related to savings and money management. Furthermore, it also provides members with the opportunity to take part in and/or from their committees (the extremely popular informal savings scheme in Pakistan which allows a pool of people to pitch in money in the form of monthly instalments which are then paid out to them in one lump sum amount) otherwise also called VC (voluntary contribution) in Pakistan. All members of this group get privileged access to Oraan committee and personalised financial coaching.
The group, with nearly 3,500 members so far, has been serving as a go-to guide for women in Pakistan seeking guidance and motivation to start saving from scratch or building a more diverse savings portfolio. The group regularly holds Facebook Live sessions (Money Talks) to engage with their members and provide them with customised advice.
The journey of the group so far has resulted in countless inspiring stories of its members. Sharing a few examples, Halima said, “We have heard so many powerful stories about women taking charge of their financial future, women reaching their saving goals through Oraan, women opening up bank accounts or starting to invest or save through Oraan. Some which personally moved me include a single mother paying for her son's college fee, a daughter helping her father pays off the loans, several women buying their first cars and even people helping their house help to achieve their goals like being able to buy an air conditioner in this hot weather!”
The community is looking towards making an even bigger mark in future, with grand plans of expansion which Halima shared with us. “We want to grow into a single largest platform for women to take inspiration from the community to help each other financially which means sharing knowledge, discussing about issues they have, taking part in savings groups together, being financial trailblazers in their own offline community through Oraan.”
With the founders’ keen ambition to inspire and encourage the women of Pakistan to become more and more financially independent, we are quite excited to see Oraan Committee achieve new milestones!
Despite experience with household budgets women doubts still raised on their ability to manage money, and have trouble finding trusted independent financial information. Women of all ages and backgrounds are hesitant about discussing financial matters with their partners or family members. This lack of communication can entrench stereotypes of men being the sole breadwinner and decision-maker leaving women vulnerable to financial abuse and loss of financial control over their life.
While we still have a long way to go in creating awareness about financial literacy for a better formal economy, however, formalising the channel of committees is a good start towards making financial savings easier for an average user.