Kiva

Alioune Badara Thioune has a confident stride. In the mornings he comes into the office sporting stylish sunglasses, a leather briefcase and a newspaper carefully tucked under his arm. After making the obligatory “good morning” rounds, he chooses a chair in the hallway and opens his newspaper until he is called into the office of the regional head. For some reason he always reminded me of a Senegalese Chili Palmer – John Travolta’s character in Get Shorty. And this was before I knew exactly what he did.

“15,000 [francs] is nothing. Nothing at all,” Mr. Thioune tells the unlucky client on the other end of the phone. Like Chili Palmer, Mr. Thioune collects debts for a living. However, this is pretty much where the resemblance ends. Unlike his Hollywood counterpart, he does not use violence or extra-legal methods to achieve results. Indeed, Mr. Thioune is quite a stickler for the rules.
The process, as Mr. Thioune methodically explained, can begin as soon as the client is even one month late. The first phase involves mostly negotiating with the client, often for several months, and putting on pressure with visits from IMCEC supervisors and Mr. Thioune, who works for a third party collection agency. If this “pre-contentious phase” does not bare fruit, the case moves eventually to the “contentious” phase with an official Sommation de Payé issued by the collection agency. The client then has eight days to present an acceptable payment schedule or face the courts. At this stage, Mr. Thioune presents a petition to the court to issue an injunction to pay. Clients tend to come around by this time and present settlements. However, for the minority who still refuse to pay, the process lumbers on. Mr. Thioune returns to the court to petition for a seizure injunction. With this injunction, comes the often humiliating scene of clients’ furniture, televisions, fridges, sheep, etc. being ferried onto IMCEC’s pick up.

Mr. Thioune explains he does not enjoy this part of the work, but rarely has pity for these clients: “After a seizure, I eat well and I sleep fine.” This may sound a bit heartless, but Mr. Thioune explains that the majority of clients have the ability to repay, but think they can simply get away with reneging on the loan. Asset seizures are a relatively new and still rare phenomenon for IMCEC Thies (one of the four regions of the larger Union of IMCECs). Since beginning in 2009, the bank has seized the assets of only a handful of clients: a baker had an oven seized, a tailor had one of his sewing machines. A few months back, a real estate broker had his living room furniture and a big screen television taken. I remember the couches sitting in the back of the IMCEC pick up in front of the regional office for all the world to see.

And this is the basic point. As one IMCEC supervisor put it, the word spreads fast in Senegal. Prior to 2009, clients knew that IMCEC would put pressure on them to pay, but they would not come to their house to impound their stuff. The goal is not to seize as many old sofas and TVs as possible, but to strengthen IMCEC’s stature and credibility. Once clients know that their possessions could be next, it’s a whole new ball game.

Financial institutions, from small MFIs to multinational banks, are underpinned by the confidence of their customers. When clients see their bank takes serious actions and does so methodically, they too take the bank more seriously. Collecting debt from clients in poor countries can seem like a cruel task, but if anything, perhaps it is even more important than in rich countries. Each franc in debt not collected is a franc not available for someone who could use it productively. Perhaps Mr. Thioune is more like a Senegalese Robin Hood than a Chili Palmer?

Mr. Thioune: Chili Palmer?

or Robin Hood? ... or perhaps somewhere in between

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Ilmari is finishing up his Kiva Fellowship at the end of the week, but will stay on to volunteer with the micro-credit program of Tostan.  Like Kiva, Tostan does incredible work so find out more at www.tostan.org