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I was really surprised to see that you're actually disintermediating microfinance. Other crowdfunded/donor-choice orgs create profiles after a borrower has rece
by j4pe 12y ago
I was really surprised to see that you're actually disintermediating microfinance. Other crowdfunded/donor-choice orgs create profiles after a borrower has received a loan, and pay any loans made to that profile into a pool for future borrowers. I thought this was a scammy but necessary part of the business model until I saw your new loan growth - very exciting development in microfinance.
I'd be curious to see how BI can inform your strategy in areas like market selection, which can be especially crucial in microfinance. Which region should you enter next, and what type of borrower should you focus on first? There's plenty of data out there for analysis, but maybe others' repayment rates for models like lending circles may not correlate too closely with yours.
- jkurnia 12y agoThat's an interesting question. Thus far our market selection has been driven more by practical constraints than sophisticated analysis. We've focused on countries that have well-developed electronic payment systems (such as M-PESA in Kenya). We also try to target places where average incomes are low enough that loan amounts that seem small in wealthy countries can have life-changing impact.
- IkmoIkmo 12y agoWondering this as well, I only recently learned that all these Kiva loans I'm participating in, helping to get it funded, had already happened! It kind of makes me wonder everytime my charity-team sends me a message 'only 5 more hours to get this loan passed!'. Not that I particularly mind, but my curiosity was activated as to how this works, why, if a different model can be better and what the benefits/drawbacks are. So I'd love to learn if people know more about how all this works!