Bags of cash on a motorcycle

Company vehicle

I never imagined that my microfinance job in Cambodia would involve riding on a motorcycle with bags full of cash. As it turned out, that’s exactly what I did.

I accompanied an employee of the organization where I work to one of his microloan disbursement assignments. I was the passenger sitting behind him on the company-owned motorcycle. We drove on narrow paths through villages in the suburbs of Phnom Penh, trying to avoid fresh mud, chickens, small children and everything else that was in our way.

People gather around to witness microloan disbursment

We stopped at several houses where families had previously applied for microloans and had them approved. The money was handed over to the beneficiaries in stacks of cash. They had to sign the loan contract along with a guarantor. It is our organization’s policy that family members are not allowed to be loan guarantors, therefore the beneficiaries typically ask their neighbors to co-sign. The entire procedure becomes a huge village affair, because the neighbors have to be called and after that many people gather to watch, laugh, chat, and socialize in general.

Signing with a fingerprint
(The husband is signing. The wife
is pointing to instruct him how to do it properly.)

When my colleague pulled out a purple stamp pad, I assumed that he would stamp the papers with an official stamp. Surprisingly, people pressed their fingers against the pad and affixed their fingerprint to the loan contract. It was confusing to me because I believed that only illiterate people sign documents with fingerprints and it wasn’t my impression that Cambodians were illiterate.

Later, I asked the director of our organization about the fingerprinting procedure and he explained that according to Cambodian law all official documents - such as bank papers - have to be signed with a fingerprint.

"That's interesting," I commented. To which he replied incredulously, “Don’t you sign papers with a fingerprint in your country?”

“Um, no," I explained, "in fact I think it might even be illegal to take fingerprints by someone other than the police.”

It was now his turn to comment, "That's interesting."

I do wonder what good the fingerprints do them. For example, if a beneficiary was trying to flee the country to avoid repaying the loan, how would they catch her? Would they take her fingerprints at the border and then – just like in a CSI episode – scan the databases to see if she has any outstanding debts? I very much doubt that they digitize the fingerprints. The whole fingerprinting charade is probably a relic of some old regime.