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ACH — Africa Community Hub
Bring Your Group

How it works

Built around how communities already save.

Community savings works. What tends to be harder than it should be is managing it. This page explains how ACH is designed to sit around an arrangement that already exists.

The shape of it

Six steps, described the way a group actually experiences them.
  1. Step 1

    Community forms

    People who trust each other decide to save together.

  2. Step 2

    Members agree a structure

    The amount, the frequency and the order are agreed by the group.

  3. Step 3

    Contributions are organised

    The arrangement gets one shared home instead of several.

  4. Step 4

    Participation becomes visible

    Coordinator and members can look at the same picture.

  5. Step 5

    The agreed cycle continues

    The rotation follows what the group decided, not the software.

  6. Step 6

    Consistency and trust build

    A clearer record means trust carries less weight alone.

What ACH sits around

The group already exists

A set of people who trust each other agree to save together — how much, how often, and in what order. ACH does not change that agreement.

The agreement gets a shared home

ACH is designed to hold the shape of the group's arrangement in one place, so it does not live only in a notebook, a chat thread or someone's memory.

The cycle stays visible

ACH is being built so the coordinator and the members can look at the same record of where a cycle stands.

The coordinator stays in charge

Decisions remain with the group and its coordinator. ACH is infrastructure around the arrangement, not a replacement for it.

Sample savings group

Example

Contribution record

  • Member ARecorded
  • Member BRecorded
  • Member CRecorded
  • Member DAwaiting
  • Member EAwaiting
Rotation3 of 8 turns
Conceptual ACH experience — illustrative view with sample data. ACH does not hold, move or guarantee money.

What a ROSCA is

ROSCA stands for Rotating Savings and Credit Association — the structure behind many Ajo, Esusu and Thrift groups.
  1. Members
  2. Regular contributions
  3. Shared pool
  4. Agreed rotation
  5. Next member
  6. Cycle continues
Rotation2 of 6 turns

This is an explanation of the community savings model itself. ACH does not process, guarantee or automate contributions or payouts.

Today, building, and the longer view

Today

ACH is a digital platform for community savings, and we are working directly with coordinators to shape it.

Building

Capabilities that give groups more structure, visibility and accountability are in development. We will describe them here once they are ready to be used.

Vision

A wider ecosystem for stronger financial communities — a direction we are building toward, not a set of features available now.

Bring Your Group