According to the research consultant of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Mr. Nget Chou said that generally Khmer people often save money by keeping money at home (in pillows or under mats), buying materials such as gold and/or buying livestock. That’s a saving for emergency use. That means when they need it, they can sell those properties for money, but it is not the right saving method, Mr. Nget Chou said.
There are currently new practical savings methods of saving money, such as savings group , saving by depositing money at microfinance institutions, and banks. Among those saving types, the most effective way of saving is saving money in savings group.
A financial expert, Mr. Nget Chou explains that “Savings Group is the most effective way than other types of saving money”. Especially the saving beginners who save money with the community near their home. There are some risks due to team management members issues, but we have the ownership on the money including decision making and learning new lessons at the same time, because the team leaders and members will be ongoing offering such training courses on business, investment, and exchange new knowledge with each other.
Saving money with microfinances or banks, savers can make money with interest rate and safe but money savers do not gain any financial knowledge or business knowledge. However, for those who become business owners and highly educated people, it is possible to save or understand the use of microfinance services or banks as they have benefits in their business.
But for students who want to get out of job early or you don’t have the knowledge of the business, it is essential that you should save money in the savings group.
“It depends on the situation of the persons if we have knowledge and an understanding of the business we want to run, we can invest early. For example, a person with disability who he is a massage therapist. After left his job, he ran a massage business that because he knew how to operate that business, knew about guests’ needs’ and knew how to manage staff. This case, you don’t need to have full investment fund to start a business as it takes too much time to save money for that investment, if we just keep postpones the investment, we might lose the investment opportunity. Therefore, if you have 30% of your saving money, your are better borrowing 70% of money from others so that you can start a business right away, Mr. Nget Chou said.”
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