November 5, 2010

Kiva - Community loans with a noble cause - social microfinance

This is a first in a series of  articles on this blog on interesting service innovations which can fuel some other interesting thoughts. 
Kiva - is a movement to enable connecting the poor to the not so poor by creating a "lending" relationship which is more than just a financial transaction. In the words of the founder, they want to use the power of the stories.
The process is simple. With the online platform from Kiva, people can see the stories of poor people across the globe who are in need for small loans to setup some self sustaining businesses. These stories are collected by field agents (who are professional microfinance institutes) associated with Kiva, and the loans given on the internet are also disbursed by these agents. The idea is that eventually the laon applicants start repaying the loans and at the rates which are higher than the normal financing rates. 

Interestingly, while I could see loans being raised for Pakistan as well, there is no field agents who have partnered with the organization so far in India..!! ?? Why ??