How FOMO could be the secret to building personal wealth
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
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Posted by: Anne Mendenhall
Inclusion Startup Stories MASTERCARD -- JANUARY 5, 2022 | BY SOPHIE HARES -- In 2008, freshly-minted U.S. Foreign Service Officer Fonta Gilliam was working in Seoul reviewing visas at the U.S. embassy when she came across an application from a South Korean street food seller. Somehow the woman had managed to save $200,000 to start a dry-cleaning business in America. Though Gilliam was initially skeptical about how the woman had gotten so much money, her colleagues quickly explained why the story checked out. The vendor was part of an informal savings circle where members regularly paid into a pot that went to one of them each year. Koreans have relied on these pooled saving plans to fulfill their dreams for centuries. As she traveled around Africa, the Middle East and Asia working with women exporters in her role as an American diplomat, Gilliam discovered that informal saving systems are everywhere. Returning home in 2016, she hit on the idea of bringing savings circles — known as sou sou in West Africa and the Caribbean — into the financial mainstream. Read more about Wnet Corporate Partner Mastercard.
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