Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through loans for the sake of alleviating global poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help fund small businesses run by low-income entrepreneurs around the world.
Loans made on Kiva.org provide 0% interest to lenders. Kiva itself charges no interest from the borrower. Borrowers are charged some interest by the respective microfinance institution handling the individual loan. Kiva.org keeps track of how much interest is charged and will not work with those charging unfair or exorbitant interest rates. Kiva borrowers have a historical repayment rate of 100%. Kiva is working with regulators to allow microfinance institutions to offer variable interest rates to lenders.
-www.kivapedia.org
If you haven’t heard of Kiva before, here’s a great interview with Premal Shah, president of Kiva, on Aljazeera.
My brother introduced me to Kiva when he celebrated the fact that he received his first loan back. And now that I’ve finally gotten around to signing up and ready to give out some loans, it seems that the world of Kiva currently has more lenders than available loans!
I’m going to have to keep checking back to see when new loans come in in the mean time. If you want to make a difference to someone else’s life, come join our team and start micro-lending to those who need it most =) Click to Join Kiva
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-Edit 19th September 2008-
Yay! I chanced upon an Entrepreneur in need of loans when I refreshed Kiva today =) I’ld like to sponsor another when my next pay check comes through or when the $AUD improves… Hopefully the latter, 79c to the $USD is a pretty ugly number. 88c would be good…after all, 8 is for ‘fa’ (发财) right?
