U.S. migrant money pools thrive in the recession

"But this payoff ... I can save, because I'm pretty much okay with the bills," said Davis.

In San Francisco, Mexican small business trainer Susana Gama, 50, paid $50 every two weeks into a tanda with 11 other co-workers. She put the $600 payout into her retirement fund.

"We just started a second one, and the money I get from that I will use toward a deposit to buy a home," she said.

The funds have largely operated apart from the mainstream financial system. But at a time when easy lending and reckless borrowing brought that system to the brink, banks and financial institutions are beginning to recognize participants' patient, disciplined commitment.

The Mission Asset Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit working with low income residents to build a more secure economic future, recently developed a program to help tanda members, among them Gama, use their contributions to build a credit history.

Over four months, participants' average credit scores improved by 52 points.

"A credit score is nothing more than a record of people's payments ... We're saying this is bona fide financial activity that should be recorded, but it's not," said Jose Quinonez, executive director of the Mission Asset Fund.

One local community bank working with the program recognizes the merit of the tanda model.

"It really does hit on the fundamental of lending. Is the person you are lending money to someone you can trust? Someone who is honorable, someone who you think will pay you back?" said Jeffrey Cheung, president and CEO of OneCalifornia Bank.

"Is it a basic lesson that bankers could all take a look at right now? Yes."

(Additional reporting by Laura Isensee in Los Angeles; Editing by Alan Elsner and Mary Milliken)