Njangi financing and how it works in Cameroon
Njangi financing is a special service of Credit Unions used to finance Njangi member's business or projects in Cameroon and many other countries.
Njangi simply is a meeting house of a group of people sharing similar views.
The term Njangi is a commonly used word in Cameroon and most African countries for years ago. It's usually a group of family members, friends, community members who share a common view and come together to form a group.
In a njangi house, they're many different sectors such as contribution of funds to help members in times of emergency, promotion of culture, financing of business plans of members etc.
Financing of business plans is the main focus of this article.
Also read:How to create an account in Credit Union Cameroon
Here's what you will learn in this article
Njangi Meaning.
Njangi Financing meaning and How Njangi Financing works.
Advantage of Njangi Financing.
Let's get started
Meaning of Njangi
Njangi Meaning. As more about Njangi has been explained above, here's just an additional explanation.
When these groups with common initiatives are formed, they usually fix a meeting date where members can always meet. On the meeting days, members usually contribute a certain agreed amount, at the end of the meeting, a ballot is thrown and anyone who picks yes goes home with the money.
This will continue till the last person picks a yes.
It usually takes 5 months to a year for it to go round. This is where Credit union comes in.
Njangi Financing meaning and How Njangi Financing works.
The Credit Union being at the forefront of poverty alleviation in Cameroon has designed a special product ( Njangi Financing) to solve the problem of time and liquidy above in Njangi houses.
So, Njangi Financing is a special service of Credit Unions whereby Credit Unions provide funds to members of a Njangi to finance their business plans after they must have met the requirements of Credit Unions. Check details of how it works below.
Here's how it works.
A member or members of the Njangi creates an account with any credit Union ( from 25 000 fcfa to 100000fcfa ) depending on the Credit Union,
The members or members of the Njangi house develop their various business plans,
Members of the Njangi house then create their meeting (Njangi) account at the credit union.
The account or that of members should have small savings in it.
The members feel a loan form amounting to the sum of the amounts each member was supposed to pick per meeting day.
For example:
If a Njangi is made up of 20 members and each member is to play 10000FCFA each week, the total amount to be picked each week will be 20 × 10000 = 2000000fcfa.
This Njangi will take at least 1 year eight months to go round.
So, the members will fill a loan form of 200000fcfa × 20 = 4,000,000 million fcfa.
With all their documents valid, that's a colateral of any member of the Njangi house amounting to the amount on loan form, the loan is approved and granted to the Njangi members on the same day.
What does this mean?
This means all members benefit from the Njangi same meeting day.
When this finance is invested in their various businesses, they can now be playing the Njangi every week and repaying the loan as agreed on their loan form.
A small interest is usually charged on the loan.
Advantage of Njangi Financing
I will list a few out of many benefits of Njangi Financing to Njangi houses below.
It solves the problem of time
It reduces the financial load of Njangi members
It alleviate poverty
It can be used to achieve big projects of Njangi members.
Conclusion
Even though Njangi Financing has a disadvantage being that some members of Njangi houses might not be faithful and also the small interest rate on the loan, the advantage of Njangi Financing is greater than its cons as listed above.
Are you in any Njangi house and want to use this special service of a Credit Union ( Njangi Financing)? I look forward to hearing from you!