17Jan
2022

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Categories :GENERAL TOPICS

Tags :  Formal and Informal Works

By Tabassum Rehmani

What are Formal and Informal Works

The general understanding the word “work” refers to any job or task that people perform in exchange for money or for some other type of benefit. However, economists have identified two common types of work: formal and informal. Although both types of works involve jobs and tasks in exchange for money or benefits.

The Elements of Formal Work

Formal work refers to work in which a company hires an employee under an established working agreement that includes, salary or wages, health benefits, and defined work hours and workdays. In most instances, employees don’t work under a signed contract, but rather work under the agreement reached when the employer offered the job to the employee. This agreement remains in force until the employer makes a change and informs an employee. Employees in a formal work agreement are often given an annual performance evaluation and are eligible for salary increases and promotions based on their performance.

The Elements of Informal Work

Informal work refers to work in which an employer hires an employee without an established working agreement. With informal work, employees don’t receive health benefits and are often hired temporarily and their work hours are not guaranteed. Informal workers are treated like contractors and often bounce from one job to another. In most instances, informal workers are paid in cash and if they are paid by check, no taxes are deducted from their salary.

Differences Between Formal and Informal Work

One primary difference between formal work and informal work is that formal work is far more stable than informal work. The reason for this is that companies invest time, training, and education in formal work employees, so that they can gain new skills that will benefit the business. Companies that provide informal work are seeking temporary employees to perform short-term tasks, typically seasonal work, which will end in a few weeks or months.

Another major difference is that formal work typically pays higher wages than informal work. The reason is that formal work tends to require a higher level of education or training than informal work. Formal workers are taxed under the existing tax guidelines and receive paychecks that reflect these taxes. Informal workers are not taxed and are responsible for paying their own taxes. As a result, a country that relies mostly on informal work may not receive all the taxes owed under the law, since there may be millions of workers that choose not to report their incomes and pay taxes on that income.

REASONS FOR INFORMAL WORK

Employers like informal working situations because they can pay lower wages, must provide few or no benefits and can hire workers only when they need them. This is important to businesses that have seasonal work or sales volume swings that cause uneven production schedules.

Now let’s see what is informal economy –

Informal Sector:

Informal sector may be broadly characterized as consisting of units engaged in the production of goods or services with the primary objective of generating employment The and incomes to the persons concerned. These units typically operate at a low level of organization, with little or no division between labor and capital as factors of production and on a small scale. Labor relations – where they exist – are based mostly on casual employment, kinship or personal and social relations rather than contractual arrangements with formal guarantees.

The informal sector represents an important part of the economy, and certainly of the labour market, in many countries and plays a major role in employment creation, production and income generation. In countries with high rates of population growth or urbanization, the informal sector tends to absorb most of the expanding labour force in the urban areas. Informal employment offers a necessary survival strategy in countries that lack social safety nets, such as unemployment insurance, or where wages and pensions are low, especially in the public sector. In these situations, indicators such as the unemployment rate and time-related underemployment are not sufficient to describe the labour market completely.

Concepts and definitions of informal sector:

Workers in the informal economy comprise all workers of the informal sector and informal workers outside the informal sector. Employment in the informal sector comprises all persons who, during a given reference period, were employed in at least one informal sector enterprise, irrespective of their status in employment and whether it was their main or a secondary job. An informal sector enterprise satisfies the following criteria:

It is an unincorporated enterprise which means that:

• It is not constituted as a legal entity.
• It is owned and controlled by one or more members.
• It is not a quasi-corporation (it does not have a complete set of accounts, including balance sheets).
• It is a market enterprise: this means that it sells at least some of the goods or services it produces.
• The enterprise is not registered.
• The employees of the enterprise are not registered.
• Informal employment outside of the informal sector comprises persons who in their main or secondary jobs.
• Own-account workers engaged in the production of goods.
• Contributing family workers, irrespective of whether they work in formal or informal sector enterprises.
• Employees holding informal jobs and they include the lack of coverage by social security system and the lack of entitlement to paid annual or sick leave.

The concept of informal sector was consciously kept flexible in order to accommodate country situations and specific country needs. In practice, this has led to a collection of national statistics on employment in the informal sector and Problems with data comparability for the measure of employment in the informal sector result especially from the following factors: differences in data sources; differences in geographic coverage; differences in the branches of economic activity covered; differences in the criteria used to define the informal sector. As with the concept of the informal sector the concept of informal employment was designed in such a way as to allow countries to accommodate their own situations and needs, which hinders comparability across countries.

Method of Computation:

The three indicators on the informal economy presented in ILO-STAT are calculated as follows: Share of informal employment in total employment (%) = Informal employment  x 100

Total employment

Share of employed persons in the informal sector (%) = Persons employed in the informal sector x 100

Total employment Share of informal employment outside the informal sector in total employment (%) = Persons in informal employment outside the informal sector x 100

Total employment ILO-STAT stand for International Labour Organization Statistics

Indicator:

The informal economy represents a challenge to policy-makers that pursue the following goals: improving the working conditions and legal and social protection of persons in informal sector employment and for employees in informal jobs; increasing the productivity of informal economic activities; developing training and skills; organizing informal sector producers and workers; and implementing appropriate regulatory frameworks, governmental reforms urban development and so on. Poverty, too, as a policy issue, overlaps with the informal economy. There is a link – although not a perfect correlation – between informal employment and being poor. This stems from the lack of labour legislation and social protection covering workers in informal employment. Informal employment are essential to obtaining a clear idea of the contributions of all workers, women in articular, to the economy. Indeed, the informal economy has been considered as “the fallback position for women who are excluded from paid employment. [ The dominant aspect of the informal economy is self- employment. It is an important source of livelihood for women in the developing world, especially in those areas where cultural norms bar them from work outside the home.

Technical Assistance Completion Report by Asian Development Bank on Informal Employment:

(TA 6430: Measuring the Informal Sector) Brief Description.

Although there has been a significant reduction in the incidence of poverty in the recent years, there were still an estimated 744 million workers of which 506 million live in Asia who do not earn enough to lift themselves and their families above the US$1.25 per day poverty line in 2010. Five out of 10 workers in the world are in vulnerable employment, either contributing family workers or own-account workers with a higher risk of being unprotected. There are indications from current research and from sparse survey results across the world that this group of working poor is engaged in informal employment. While the informal sector offers a cushion to workers during economic crisis, the benefits of informal employment may not be sufficient to achieve an acceptable standard of living because informal employment rarely comes with adequate wages, good working conditions, and social protection.

However, while many developing countries in Asia conduct labor force survey (LFS) regularly, very few collect data on the informal sector and informal employment, which is perceived to be a substantial component of the labor market in developing countries. Collecting informal sector and informal employment data is difficult because of its nature and composition and hence, they are not usually part of the governments’ set of official statistics, workers and their families and regulations that govern the informal economy. RETA 6430 was designed and implemented as a contribution to this global effort. For a government to provide necessary budget allocation for statistics development, public support and awareness is needed. Hence, wide dissemination of outputs from statistical activities.

An Analysis of the Informal Labour Market in India

INFORMAL INDIAN ECONOMY:

About 370 million workers constituting 92% of the total workforce in a country were employed in the unorganized sector as per NSS Survey 1999-2000. The informal sector constitutes largest portion of the economy in terms of value addition, savings, investments etc. The share of formal sector is around 12 -14 percent in our national income while that of informal sector is more than 30 percent. In India, a large section of the total workforce is still in the informal sector, which contributes a sizeable portion of the country’s net domestic product. analyzing the composition of the Indian Economy, it is of two major sectors namely, organized and unorganized. The organized sector contributes two third to the GDP. Whereas the remaining 1/3 is by unorganized sector. The following statistics by National Account Statistics reveals the contribution of underorganized sector to the NDP. The 25 percent of the informal sectors constitute the urban employment in India. These comprise of domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers. The 25 percent of the informal sectors constitute the urban employment in India. These comprise of domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers. Majority of the Indian population are concentrated in informal sectors. I think the main reason could be because most of the Indian section of the society are economically backward people. They cannot afford to pay taxes. They can hardly earn the basic bread of the day.

THE INDIAN SCENARIO:

The Ministry of Labour, Government of India, has categorized the unorganized labour force under four groups in terms of Occupation, nature of employment, specially distressed categories and service categories.

In Terms of Occupation:

Small and marginal farmers, landless agricultural labourers, share croppers, fishermen, those engaged in animal husbandry, labeling and packing, building and construction workers, leather workers, weavers, artisans, salt workers, workers in brick kilns and stone quarries, workers in saw mills, oil mills etc.

In Terms Nature of Employment:

Attached agricultural labourers, bonded labourers, migrant workers, contract and casual labourers .

In Terms of Specially Distressed Categories

Toddy tappers, Scavengers, Carriers of head loads, Drivers of animal driven vehicles, Loaders and unloaders.

In Terms of Service Categories

Midwives, Domestic workers, Fishermen and women, Barbers, Vegetable and fruit vendors, Newspaper vendors etc.

INFORMAL EARNING/EMPLOYMENT ACTIVITY IN PICTURES:

World Bank, ”World Bank Open Data‟ http://data.worldbank.org/

THE INFORMAL ECONOMY OF PAKISTAN

The informal economy is understood as a parallel economy whose income is undocumented and untaxed. The informal economy is also believed to be symptomatic of a dysfunctional state, which is ineffective, inefficient and unfair. For most governments, these concerns outweigh any advantages that the informal sector offers. The start of this millennium has sparked a renewed interest in the informal economy worldwide. The informal economy has earned strong recognition as an integral support to the formal economy that contributes considerably to the overall economy by facilitating new enterprise creation and supporting the working poor to reduce poverty and inequality in the developing world. An all-inclusive attempt at defining informal economy was carried out in the mid-1990s, when the International Labour Office (ILO), the International Expert Group on Informal Sector Statistics and the Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) network together broadened the concept and definition of the informal economy.

a:  As defined by the fifteenth ICLS (excluding households employing paid domestic workers).

b: Households producing goods exclusively for their own final use and households employing paid domestic workers.

Credit Delivery System of Grameen Bank Module:

Bank Credit Delivery means taking credit to the very poor in their villages.

Main Features: There is an exclusive focus on the poorest of the poor.

Exclusivity is ensured by: Establishing clearly the eligibility criteria for selection of targeted clientele.

Borrowers are organized into small homogeneous groups and acquire the capacity for planning and implementing micro level development decisions.

Special loan conditionalities which are particularly suitable for the poor, which include the following:

• loans given without any collateral
• loans repayable in weekly instalments spread over a year
• eligibility for a subsequent loan depends upon repayment of first loan
• individual, self-chosen, quick income generating activities which employ the skills that borrowers already posses
• close supervision of credit by the group as well as the bank staff
• stress on credit discipline and peer support solidarity etc.
• simultaneous undertaking of a social development agenda addressing basic needs of the clientele.

Design and development of organization and management systems:

The system has evolved gradually through a structured learning process, that involves trials, errors and continuous adjustments. A major requirement to operationalize the system is the special training given for development of a highly motivated staff, so that the decision making and operational authority is gradually decentralized and administrative functions are delegated at the zonal levels downwards.

• Expansion of loan portfolio to meet diverse development needs of the poor.
• Credit for building sanitary latrines.
• Credit for installation of tube-wells that supply drinking water and irrigation for kitchen gardens
• Credit for seasonal cultivation to buy agricultural inputs
• Loan for leasing equipment / machinery, ie., cell phones purchased by Grameen Bank members
• Finance projects undertaken by the entire family of a seasoned borrower.

Loans are small, but sufficient to finance the micro-enterprises undertaken by borrowers: rice-husking, machine repairing, purchase of rickshaws, buying of milk cows, goats, cloth, pottery etc. The interest rate on all loans is 16 percent. The repayment rate on loans is currently – 95 per cent – due to group pressure and self-interest, as well as the motivation of borrowers.

Although mobilization of savings is also being pursued alongside the lending activities of the Grameen Bank, most of the latter’s loanable funds are increasingly obtained on commercial terms from the central bank, other financial institutions, the money market, and from bilateral and multilateral aid organizations.

EVALUATION OF POVERTY THROUGH 10 INDICATORS DESIGNED BY DR. MUHAMMAD YUNUS, THE FOUNDER OF GRAMEEN BANK, BANGLADESH

Every year GB staff evaluate their work and check whether the socio-economic situation of GB members is improving. GB evaluates poverty level of the borrowers using ten indicators.

A member is considered to have moved out of poverty if her family fulfills the following criteria:

1. The family lives in a house worth at least Tk. 25,000 (twenty-five thousand) or a house with a tin roof, and each member of the family is able to sleep on bed instead of on the floor.
2. Family members drink pure water of tube-wells, boiled water or water purified by using alum, arsenic-free, purifying tablets or pitcher filters.
3. All children in the family over six years of age are all going to school or finished primary school.
4. Minimum weekly loan installment of the borrower is Tk. 200 or more
5. Family uses sanitary latrine.
6. Family members have adequate clothing for everyday use, warm clothing for winter, such as shawls, sweaters, blankets, etc., and mosquito-nets to protect themselves from mosquitoes.
7. Family has sources of additional income, such as vegetable garden, fruit-bearing trees, etc, so that they are able to fall back on these sources of income when they need additional money.
8. The borrower maintains an average annual balance of Tk. 5,000 in her savings accounts.
9. Family experiences no difficulty in having three square meals a day throughout the year, i. e. no member of the family goes hungry any time of the year.
10. Family can take care of the health. If any member of the family falls ill, family can afford to take all necessary steps to seek adequate healthcare.

Credit Lending Models used by microfinance institutions:

Microfinance institutions are using various Credit Lending Models throughout the world. Some of the models are listed below.

Use of Associations

This is where the target community forms an ‘association’ through which various microfinance (and other) activities are initiated. Such activities may include savings. Associations or groups can be composed of youth, or women; they can form around political/religious/cultural issues; can create support structures for microenterprises and other work-based issues.

In some countries, an ‘association’ can be a legal body that has certain advantages such as collection of fees, insurance, tax breaks and other protective measures. Distinction is made between associations, community groups, peoples organizations, etc. on one hand (which are mass, community based) and NGOs, etc. which are essentially external organizations.

Use of Bank Guarantees

As the name suggests, a bank guarantee is used to obtain a loan from a commercial bank. This guarantee may be arranged externally (through a donor/donation, government agency etc.) or internally (using member savings). Loans obtained may be given directly to an individual, or they may be given to a self-formed group. Bank Guarantee is a form of capital guarantee scheme. Guaranteed funds may be used for various purposes, including loan recovery and insurance claims. Several international and UN organizations have been creating international guarantee funds that banks and NGOs can subscribe to, to onlend or start microcredit programmes.

Use of Community

The Community Banking model essentially treats the whole community as one unit, and establishes semi-formal or formal institutions through which microfinance is dispensed. Such institutions are usually formed by extensive help from NGOs and other organizations, who also train the community members in various financial activities of the community bank. These institutions may have savings components and other income-generating projects included in their structure. In many cases, community banks are also part of larger community development programmes which use finance as an inducement for action.

Use of Cooperatives Societies

A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. Some cooperatives include member-financing and savings activities in their mandate.

Use of Credit Unions

A credit union is a unique member-driven, self-help financial institution. It is organized by and comprised of members of a particular group or organization, who agree to save their money together and to make loans to each other at reasonable rates of interest.

The members are people of some common bond: working for the same employer; belonging to the same church, labor union, social fraternity, etc.; or living/working in the same community. A credit union’s membership is open to all who belong to the group, regardless of race, religion, color or creed.

A credit union is a democratic, not-for-profit financial cooperative. Each is owned and governed by its members, with members having a vote in the election of directors and committee representatives.

The Grameen model for lending

The Grameen model emerged from the poor-focused grassroots institution, Grameen Bank, started by Prof. Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh.

Methodology for lending:

A bank unit is set up with a Field Manager and a number of bank workers, covering an area of about 15 to 22 villages. The manager and workers start by visiting villages to familiarise themselves with the local milieu in which they will be operating and identify prospective clientele, as well as explain the purpose, functions, and mode of operation of the bank to the local population. Groups of five prospective borrowers are formed; in the first stage, only two of them are eligible for, and receive, a loan. The group is observed for a month to see if the members are conforming to rules of the bank. Only if the first two borrowers repay the principal plus interest over a period of fifty weeks do other members of the group become eligible themselves for a loan. Because of these restrictions, there is substantial group pressure to keep individual records clear. In this sense, collective responsibility of the group serves as collateral on the loan.

Lending to Group

The Group Model’s basic philosophy lies in the fact that shortcomings and weaknesses at the individual level are overcome by the collective responsibility and security afforded by the formation of a group of such individuals. The collective coming together of individual members is used for a number of purposes: educating and awareness building, collective bargaining power, peer pressure etc.

Lending to Individuals

This is a straight forward credit lending model where micro loans are given directly to the borrower. It does not include the formation of groups, or generating peer pressures to ensure repayment. The individual model is, in many cases, a part of a larger ‘credit plus’ programme, where other socio-economic services such as skill development, education, and other outreach services are provided.

Lending through Intermediators

Intermediary model of credit lending position is a ‘go-between’ organization between the lenders and borrowers. The intermediary plays a critical role of generating credit awareness and education among the borrowers (including, in some cases, starting savings programmes. These activities are geared towards raising the ‘credit worthiness’ of the borrowers to a level sufficient enough to make them attractive to the lenders.

The links developed by the intermediaries could cover funding, programme links, training and education, and research. Such activities can take place at various levels from international and national to regional, local and individual levels.

Intermediaries could be individual lenders, NGOs, microenterprise/microcredit programmes, and commercial banks (for government financed programmes). Lenders could be government agencies, commercial banks, international donors, etc.

Lending through Non-Governmental Organizations

NGOs have emerged as a key player in the field of microcredit. They have played the role of intermediary in various dimensions. NGOs have been active in starting and participating in microcredit programmes. This includes creating awareness of the importance of microcredit within the community, as well as various national and international donor agencies. They have developed resources and tools for communities and microcredit organizations to monitor progress and identify good practices. They have also created opportunities to learn about the principles and practice of microcredit. This includes publications, workshops and seminars, and training programmes.

Lending through Peer Pressure

Peer pressure uses moral and other linkages between borrowers and project participants to ensure participation and repayment in microcredit programmes. Peers could be other members in a borrowers group (where, unless the initial borrowers in a group repay, the other members do not receive loans. Hence pressure is put on the initial members to repay); community leaders (usually idetified, nurtured and trained by external NGOs); NGOs themselves and their field officers; banks etc. The ‘pressure’ applied can be in the form of frequent visits to the defaulter, community meetings where they are identified and requested to comply etc.

Other financing models in informal sector:

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) are essentially a group of individuals who come together and make regular cyclical contributions to a common fund, which is then given as a lump sum to one member in each cycle. For example, a group of 12 persons may contribute Rs. 100 (US$33) per month for 12 months. The Rs. 1,200 collected each month is given to one member. Thus, a member will ‘lend’ money to other members through his regular monthly contributions. After having received the lump sum amount when it is his turn (i.e. ‘borrow’ from the group), he then pays back the amount in regular/further monthly contributions. Deciding who receives the lump sum is done by consensus, by lottery, by bidding or other agreed methods.

Small Business

The prevailing vision of the ‘informal sector’ is one of survival, low productivity and very little value added. But this has been changing, as more and more importance is placed on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) – for generating employment, for increasing income and providing services which are lacking. Policies have generally focused on direct interventions in the form of supporting systems such as training, technical advice, management principles etc.; and indirect interventions in the form of an enabling policy and market environment.

A key component that is always incorporated as a sort of common denominator has been finance, specifically microcredit – in different forms and for different uses. Microcredit has been provided to SMEs directly, or as a part of a larger enterprise development programme, along with other inputs.

Village Banking

Village banks are community-based credit and savings associations. They typically consist of 25 to 50 low-income individuals who are seeking to improve their lives through self-employment activities. Initial loan capital for the village bank may come from an external source, but the members themselves run the bank: they choose their members, elect their own officers, establish their own by-laws, distribute loans to individuals, collect payments and savings. Their loans are backed, not by goods or property, but by moral collateral: the promise that the group stands behind each individual loan.

Pakistan: Akhuwat Micro Financing and recovery model

This consists of the following:

Lending Methodology:   Individual loans are marketed through awareness campaign in poor localities market places and through previous borrowers and an introduction to the program is also given in nearby mosque or church when people have congregated for there for prayers.

Individual Selection:  The loan process starts with the submission of applications by persons interested in getting financial assistance. The Unit Manager (Loan Officer) then evaluates whether the applicant deserves the loan or not, i.e. lives below the poverty line, has a reliable social capital, is not involved in any illegal business and possesses entrepreneurial abilities etc.

Preparation of Business Plans: Through the preparation of business plans the business idea of the intended loanee is evaluated and whether it can generate income beyond the household expenses of the individual so that the loan could be repaid easily. The applicant’s family is also interviewed to make sure that they know about the loan and support the business idea.

Credit Appraisal: After initial appraisal by the Unit Manager the application is forwarded to Branch Manager who the carries out the technical section of the appraisal process. Then the case is referred to Loan Approval Committee.  If the committee approves the case, then the loan is disbursed.

Guarantors of Loans: Every borrower also provides two individual guarantors, one of whom may be from his own family, who confirm his/her credentials and accept the responsibility of monitoring the borrower and give assurance to persuade the borrower for timely payment of loan.

Recovery/Follow up: Once the loan has been disbursed the Unit Manager monitors the client with regular visits to his residence and place of work. If a payment is not made by the 10^th day of the next month, the Unit Manager visits the client to remind, and if repayment is still not done then the guarantors are contacted and asked to make the payment.

Managing recoveries for informal income earning borrowers: the African experience

The African Union for Housing Finance and the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa , co-hosted a two day workshop, from 27- 28 March, in partnership with AUHF member, Central Africa Building Society , Housing  Development Finance Corporation of India and the Zimbabwe Association for Housing Finance  under the theme of “Managing recoveries for informal income earning borrowers”.

The theme of Lending to borrowers with informal incomes had the objective of providing the concepts of households with informal incomes. According to International Labour Organization (ILO) more than 61 percent of the global employed population earn from the informal economy.  But in Africa that 85 percent of employment is informal.   The Centre for Global Development argues that the informal sector will remain resilient as there is evidence of ‘gig employment’ growth in Africa.  A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements. … The current reality is that people tend to change jobs several times throughout their working lives and the gig economy can be seen as an evolution of that trend. The recognition of the informal market by financial institutions as a potential client for the growth of their market share could aid the advancement of available risk management techniques.  HDFC, India has achieved this by designing market appropriate engagements methodologies. The factors that were emphasized involved:

• Access to Bankable Land and upgrading of infrastructure
• Lack of affordable capital for the microfinance lenders; which also leads to high on lending pricing.
• Institutional capacity whereby the available data is not utilised to its best use for more market product development and engagement with clients.
• Absence of market data tracking and segmenting the existing market needs that need to design the right financing responses.
• The need to educate borrowers on housing microfinance, savings and lending processes and the need for financial institutions to adopt segmentation and customer approach for the poor as they are not a homogenous group.
• The primary basis for evaluating loan applications in microfinance is character and repayment capacity rather than collateral.

Furthermore, the HDFC Customer Risk Assessment seeks to:

• Understand a customer’s stability through interviews with clients and neighbors to understand habits and home visits to applicants to understand their housing situation and stability
• Understand a customer’s source of income by visiting applicant’s business to observe daily business flows and costs. To understand the applicant’s business model and fluctuations in income.
• Standardization by building a database of informal sector customers’ income by profession in different localities.

(Tabassum Rahmani)

FOLOWING REFERENCES USED

World Bank, ”World Bank Open Data‟

http://data.worldbank.org/

http://www.grameen.com/credit-delivery-system/

http://www.grameen.com/breaking-the-cycle-of-proverty/

http://laborsta.ilo.org/informal_economy_E.html

www.adb.org

Difference between formal and informal sector in India

https://www.arcjournals.org/pdfs/ijmsr/v4-i1/9.pdf

http://www.ies.gov.in/pdfs/CII%20EM-october-2014.pdf

https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—asia/—ro-bangkok/—sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_306006.pdf

http://www.gdrc.org/icm/formal-informal.html

http://www.gdrc.org/icm/formal-informal.html

http://www.gdrc.org/icm/formal-informal.html

http://www.ies.gov.in/pdfs/CII%20EM-october-2014.pdf

https://www.akhuwat.org.pk/micro-finance-to-islamic-micro-finance-akhuwat-model/

http://housingfinanceafrica.org/documents/managing-recoveries-for-informal-income-earning-borrowers/