Posts tagged under Philiippines
Demystifying Manila’s “Bumbai” money lender
In the past few months our team has been busy collecting primary data from three different ASEAN cities: Jakarta, Manila, and Hanoi. Between April 9 and April 14 2012 the Asian Trends Monitoring team conducted a survey among Manila’s poor. We collected a total of 352 responses from nine different locations in Manila with the help of 14 researchers from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. This blog post is inspired by face to face interviews and some exploratory data analysis of the Manila data set.
Filipino communities stand out through their extraordinary community spirit, social events, and close family ties. Helping out family members and neighbours is part of the culture in the Philippines. Therefore, it is not surprising that 55% of our respondents say that their primary source for loans are relatives and friends. However, a close relationship comes with personal accountability and thus family is not always an option. The other commonly used loan service are informal money lenders, the so called “Bumbai”. Since the informal lending business in Manila is dominated by Turban-wearing Indians who drive by on their motorcycle on a daily basis, locals have given them the nickname “Bumbai” (a mix of the old Bombay, which is now officially Mumbai). Even though we asked around a lot, no one could tell us for sure when the man on the motorcycle would make his round. Attempts to find out where the Bumbai lived were (of course!) futile.
