Something people should be more aware of regarding Kiva...
Ignore the pictures of the people you are purportedly lending to, their projects, and even their country. That is pure marketing.
If you read the small-print http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more you will see that you aren't lending to these people at all, but actually making zero-interest, low-risk, short-term loans to micro-finance institutions. (That said, I do have a couple of hundred dollars in Kiva myself.)
That's not quite true is it - if that person defaults you lose your money.
It's similar to switching electricity suppliers (stay with me!) - you don't get a new cable straight from the electricity company which carries only "their" electricity, you stick with the same cable and the same electricity but more of your supplier's electricity gets bought.
They have microfinance partners, people approach these partners and the partners approach Kiva. Sometimes you'll see "pre-funded" loans where the person has approved the partner, the partner funded them and then Kiva is used to reimburse the partner.
You are lending to the people but through a proxy. If you put $25 in the microfinance partner redistributes $25 to the person, it just might not be the $25 you put in. Like a bank, the $100 you put in isn't the $100 you take out but the money is still yours.
If they have faith in the system, then surely this should cost them next to nothing as everything should be repaid? (Although I'm naive on the accounting of things like this.)
Great idea though, never lost a $1 through kiva lending.
[+] [-] waitwhat|14 years ago|reply
Ignore the pictures of the people you are purportedly lending to, their projects, and even their country. That is pure marketing.
If you read the small-print http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more you will see that you aren't lending to these people at all, but actually making zero-interest, low-risk, short-term loans to micro-finance institutions. (That said, I do have a couple of hundred dollars in Kiva myself.)
[+] [-] nodata|14 years ago|reply
It's similar to switching electricity suppliers (stay with me!) - you don't get a new cable straight from the electricity company which carries only "their" electricity, you stick with the same cable and the same electricity but more of your supplier's electricity gets bought.
[+] [-] citricsquid|14 years ago|reply
They have microfinance partners, people approach these partners and the partners approach Kiva. Sometimes you'll see "pre-funded" loans where the person has approved the partner, the partner funded them and then Kiva is used to reimburse the partner.
You are lending to the people but through a proxy. If you put $25 in the microfinance partner redistributes $25 to the person, it just might not be the $25 you put in. Like a bank, the $100 you put in isn't the $100 you take out but the money is still yours.
[+] [-] clloyd|14 years ago|reply
Great idea though, never lost a $1 through kiva lending.
[+] [-] knight99|14 years ago|reply
http://www.kiva.org/about/risk/overview
[+] [-] sgk284|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eekfuh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjg_|14 years ago|reply