The Ghana susu system helps the African Diaspora: The ‘banker ladies’ of Canada organize banking coops to combat exclusion

I was born in Nalerigu, a village in northeastern Ghana. For most of my life, I watched my mother, Mariama, worked as a trader and she used Susu to meet her financial needs. My mother used money from susu to pay my school fees and to carry out her trade business. Ghana’s Susu system is widely used by people.

Susu means “small small” in the Twi language (Amankwah et al. 2019:2). I only knew about Susu as a banking tradition in Ghana. I did not know that I would come to learn of its activities in a ‘developed’ country when I moved to Toronto, Canada to carry out my doctoral studies in anthropology.

In Spring 2022 I was hired as a research assistant to work on a project to understand the rotating savings and credit associations–short form ROSCAs. ROSCAs are defined as voluntary mutual aid financial groups by members who rotate a lump sum of savings in turn to members of the group (Ardener and Burman 1996; Ardener, 1964).

ROSCAs have long been practiced thousands of years ago in countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific; and are culturally embedded in communal values of self-help, solidarity, and reciprocity.

In my research, I learned that the ROSCAs that the “Banker Ladies” organize are one of their banking devices, but often it is their main mode of banking. For more than a decade, University of Toronto Professor Caroline Shenaz Hossein (2018; 2013) has examined financial cooperatives in the Americas, such as Susu among the diasporas.

In her work, she affectionately uses the term, “Banker Ladies” for the women who run and manage ROSCAs and holds that what they do is not simply a coping mechanism, but these women are taking a stand on how business is conducted – they are opting for collective finance.

The documentary film, “Banker Ladies,” (Mondesir 2021) makes known the ROSCA system among Black women in Canadian society, and this is when I learned that Susu is helping the African diaspora.

It seems that the “Banker Ladies”, of African heritages, from the Caribbean and Africa, use Susu-like systems out of desperation and by way of cultural affinities.

Canadian Women Turn to Susu-Like Banks

In a meeting with “Banker Ladies” in Toronto, I learned how Black diaspora women depend on the Susu system for banking because they have limited access to formal commercial banks. Commercial banks exist near them, but the racial and gender discrimination they endure to carry out mundane tasks makes them less interested in going to those banks.

I listened to Banker Lady “Lorraine” almost in tears, recounting how women are invasively questioned and even refused the right to withdraw their monies from the bank. Another woman “Laylah” explained that she is stared at in a rude manner as if to say she does not belong in this bank. As a newcomer to Canada, I listened to these painful narrations, but I could not help but I ponder: Why does a multi-cultural city like Toronto marginalize low-income Black women in such a way that they self-exclude from using commercial banks?

Why does Canada offer financial exclusion expertise to countries like Ghana when they have an issue of reaching Black women in their own backyard? To be sure, the financial exclusion of African Canadian women is acute and this is why Susu banks help them. Women in Ghana also use Susu because they too are excluded from commercial banks for a host of reasons.

Women Felt that they Must Hide the Susu System in Canada

As a Ghanaian, it was strange for me to hear and take note that people hide their Susu system. My mother and women in Ghana are proud of Susu because it allows them to help themselves as well as others. Susu is built around trust and reciprocity, and it is not viewed as something that is bad or should bring shame. However, in the meeting, I listened with great difficulty to the fears and traumas that Black Canadian “Banker Ladies” endure when they organize Susu.

The “Banker Ladies” explained that they fear the police and those neighbours who never heard about Susu. The women clarified that people can report them and cause trouble for them when they meet and this is why they make great efforts to conceal what they do. A young Banker Lady “Maymoun”, wearing a hijab, recounted that the women in her Ayuuto, a Somali name for a Susu, are labelled as scammers or terrorists for organizing a cooperative.

Two other “Banker Ladies”, names withheld on purpose, shared how during police raids for drugs in an apartment block accused that their Susu is confused with drug money. The ROSCA monies by hard-working women are deemed ‘illegal’ by authorities who never heard of a Susu system.

The “Banker Ladies” held a council meeting to figure out how they can make sure that there is education around ROSCA systems. A Banker Lady lamented: “Hmmm! We help the society and Canadian people a lot, and some of we organize housing and care co-ops, we organize Susu, and we support many people…but the government does not appreciate us!” Despite the work being done to inform society about the work of the “Banker Ladies, policy-makers are still confused about how these women can be incorporated into economic development efforts.

Recognize the Widespread use of Susu in the Black Diaspora

The “Banker Ladies” in Canada have different names for Susu, depending on where they come from. For example, there is Somalian Hagbad, Jamaican Partner, Indian Chit, Chinese Hui, and so forth. The “Banker Ladies” said that they bring Susu-like systems from their respective homelands in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Guyana, Nigeria, India, and other places which they practiced with their mothers before.

It seems from the little I know that these ROSCAs which are practiced in Canada are happening among various diaspora groups. Yet the state is ambivalent about learning about these systems.

And just as Susu is beneficial to southern countries where they are common, they help make Canada a better place. ROSCAs do not only fill up the exclusionary void created by formal banking institutions by inspiring financial inclusion for all in Canada. Their embeddedness in self-help based on moral economies (economies privileging social relations over profit) has strengthened peace, collectivity, and cooperation which make Canada a better place.

What do the “Banker Ladies” of Canada want? The “Banker Ladies” stated: “We need financial freedom!” and others outrightly stressed, “we need recognition by the state to practice our ROSCAs…and co-ops.” And as stated above, ROSCAs which are rooted in mutual aid and cooperation, are lifelines in socio-economic inclusion and progress in society.

Absolutely! Collectivism and mutual aid are sines qua non for progress in all society, this is even more of a necessity in a neo-liberal capitalist state like Canada. More so, we don’t even talk of their role in uncertain times such as life under the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war with a high influx of forced refugees to Canada. Collectivity and self-help groups are needed in these times to support one another.

Innovative co-ops such as Cooperative Cleaners of Ontario, Kuumba Childcare Co-op, Ebony Care Cooperative, and Interpreters and Translators Platform Cooperative among other cooperatives led by Black Canadian women to care for society. This is what Canada’s “Banker Ladies” have been doing.

They have been stirring together to make business-focused, despite the erasure, negative labels, and indignities meted out to them by the state and Canadians in general.

The “Banker Ladies” for now need a change, they need recognition via educating the public and the government about ROSCAs. By recognition, they are not saying the government should formalize and ensure licensing of ROSCAs in Canada (which in itself is not bad, especially in the distant future). But they implore that the state should simply allow them some space to practice and spread these solidarity economies that both repair the brunt of racism and inspire social inclusivity.

The state should see the “Banker Ladies” as legitimate and culturally distinct financial practitioners who have good intentions to promote progress through collectivity, cohesion, cooperation, and mutual aid. In refusing to allow for peace of the “Banker Ladies”, the state is then being complicit in erasing their contributions to social and economic development.

Works Cited

Amankwah, E; G. F., Augustine & O. Eric, 2019. Pareto Superior dimension of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) in Ghana: Evidence from Asunafo North Municipality of Ghana. https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/96308/

Ardener, S. (1964). “The comparative study of rotating credit Associations.” Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, 94(2), 201–229.

Ardener, S. (1964). “The comparative study of rotating credit Associations.” Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, 94(2), 201–229.

Ardener, S., and S. Burman, eds. 1996. Money-Go-Rounds: The Importance of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations for Women. Oxford, UK: Berg.

Hossein, C. S. 2018. The Black Social Economy in the Americas: Exploring Diverse Community-Based Alternative Markets. Edited collection. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hossein, C.S. 2013. “The Black social economy: Perseverance of Banker Ladies in the slums.” Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 84(1): 423-442.

Mondesir, E., Director. 2021. Banker Ladies. Hosted on Films for Action.