There are estimated to be some seven million Thai people who are shut out from the existing credit and banking schemes – the ability to borrow money when required can mean the difference between survival and disaster at the family level in the event of illness. It is of course also essential for small businesses to be able to obtain credit so as to overcome cash flow problems. There is a real danger that large numbers of people will become entrapped by unregistered (and often unscrupulous) loan sharks. Consequently, the government has been trying to expand upon existing lines of credit for the poor – the groundbreaking scheme was the Village Fund scheme of 2002 but that could only deal with a limited number of people.
Of course, education is also necessary to help people manage debt – rural indebtedness is a systemic part of subsistence agriculture (i.e. income comes once per year but expenses crop up around the year) and has been a human tragedy for centuries.
