Freeing Lending from Cash Dependency
Multi-Capital - Village Savings and Loan Associations
For generations, communities across the World have practiced a powerful brilliance: pooling what they have, rotating and reciprocal access, and trusting each other above all. Before the terms ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Associations) or VSLAs (Village Savings and Credit Associations) became popular, there were ROLAs (Rotating Labor Associations_ —like the mweria of the Mijikenda or nyoluoro among the Luo —where neighbors loaned labor, not money, to cultivate fields, build homes, or share harvests.
These systems didn’t rely on nation currency.
They relied on pooling commitments.
Today, many financial institutions like Credit Unions and VSLAs (Village Savings and Loan Associations) continue that tradition—meeting weekly, saving in small amounts, lending to each other, and sharing out at the end of the year. But they’re often trapped in a world that values only one form of capital: cash.
It’s time VSLAs liberated themselves from that dependency.
VSLAs Have Many More Resources Than Just Money
What if a group member could borrow not just cash—but food, a day’s labor, or school tutoring?
What if a loan could be a promise to deliver firewood next week, or to provide child care during planting season?
What if VSLAs could loan and borrow everything that communities already have in abundance—their time, skills, services, and goods?
This is not just a dream. It’s what has always happened in the past - and integrating both cash as a resource among many other is already happening, through Commitment Pooling.
Lending Commitments, Not Just Cash
Commitment Pooling transforms the VSLA loan fund into a digital vault—accessible by mobile phone, tracked on the blockchain, and filled not just with currency (stable coins), but with vouchers. Each voucher is a commitment issued by a member: a promise to provide a specific good or service, (usually) valued in local currency.
A tomato farmer might issue 2,000 KES worth of tomato vouchers. A tailor might issue 1,500 KES worth of sewing vouchers. These vouchers are given credit limits and allowed to be deposited into the pool, just like savings.
Borrowing and Lending: And when a member needs something, they swap their own voucher into the pool and take out something else: another voucher, or even stablecoins like cUSD if they are in the pool. Their vouchers in the pool signify their debt to the community and also are a type of collateral - because they can be used for committed goods and services.
This is lending that mirrors the way our ancestors shared resources:
Not by liquidating value, but by circulating trust.
Backed by the Blockchain, Rooted in Tradition
All of this happens transparently on open source platforms like Sarafu.Network—where swaps, limits, and debts are chosen by a community and enforced by code. The governance, rules, and relationships still follow the familiar community - VSLA model:
10–25 trusted members
Weekly meetings
Shared constitution
Social funds for emergencies
Elected stewards and transparent reporting
No one needs to handle cash.
No one can falsify the records.
But everyone participates.
When Cash Is Needed: Strategic Liquidity via Certification
Let’s be clear—cash still matters. School fees, hospital visits, and market transactions often require it.
That’s why we’re building bridges between local commitments and national currencies.
By tracking how VSLAs circulate value—redeeming vouchers, organizing labor, or completing environmental projects—we generate credible impact reports. These can then be certified through partners (like EcoCerts for agroforestry, or Humanitarian Standards certifications for aid delivery), creating eligibility for liquidity injections:
Donors or governments can match commitments with cash (stablecoins).
Buyers can pre-finance future produce (Swapping national currency for vouchers like gift cards).
NGOs can issue results-based payments for verified community outcomes.
In this way, local value creation becomes the collateral for external cash—not the other way around.
The Next Step for VSLAs
We’ve seen VSLAs survive famine, pandemics, and economic collapse—not because of what’s in their cash box, but because of what’s in their hearts: solidarity, ingenuity, and mutual commitment.
By integrating Commitment Pooling, VSLAs progress into multi-capital mutual credit systems, capable of:
Lending labor, goods, services, and stablecoins
Responding instantly to local emergencies
Attracting investment through proof of action
They become decentralized banks of trust—independent of external approval, but interoperable with global finance.
The future of lending is not just about cash.
It’s about unleashing the full range of what a community can offer.
Circulating trust ... this is the key, allowing ourselves to trust not simply the 'commitment pool' itself, but each other. Trust is not only a key ingredient to success - but it is key to our moving forward in an alternative way, to distrusting each other, looking sideways, casual racism etc ... trust is perhaps the first deep breath we have to take in order to step forward.