Quick – how many Microfinance / P2P organizations can you name, other than Kiva? I could name just two (Zidisha and Vittana), until about a few days ago. Out of curiosity, I googled for organizations like Kiva.
Why learn about other organizations at all?
May be you want to learn about different Microfinance models, may be you want to earn interest on your loan, may be you want to support other organizations in addition to Kiva, may be you are just curious (like me) – whatever is the reason, it is an interesting exercise. It also helps us to give better ideas to Kiva, picking the best ones from other organizations.
While reading through the article, you’ll notice one remarkable statistic about our beloved Kiva – it is simply that how big Kiva has grown, in such a short period of time. Almost all organizations listed below seem tiny in front of Kiva. I suppose Kiva is doing something (many things?) right.
I found a few organizations that I’ve listed below (in alphabetical order). Please feel free to let me know if I’ve missed any (either in the comments, or email Kivanewyork). I’ll update this post with more organizations, as I come across them. If you have experience lending with these organizations (both good and bad) please feel free to share.
| Website | http://www.milaap.org/ |
| Types of loans | Sanitation, solar system, careers etc |
| How it works? | Exactly like Kiva Lenders -> Milaap -> Field Partners -> Borrowers -> Field Partners -> Milaap -> Lenders |
| Repayment Rate | 100% (this is very impressive) |
| Total Amount Lent | 530,000 USD |
| Lives Impacted | 13,000 |
| Interest paid to lenders? | No |
| No of Field Partners | 6 |
| Countries Operating In | India |
| Website | http://www.myc4.com |
| Types of loans | Entrepeneurs |
| How it works? | MyC4′s model is similar to Zidisha’s.Borrowers specify how much interest rate they can pay, and lenders “bid” on loans specifying how much interest they would like to get. When the auction is over, lenders with lower interest rates win. |
| Total Amount Lent | 17,275,097 Euros |
| No of businesses funded | 10,564 |
| No of lenders | 19,337 |
| No of countries lenders are from | 117 |
| No of countries operating in | 7 (all African countries) |
| Website | https://www.rangde.org/index.htm |
| Types of loans | Entrepreneurs |
| How it works? | Exactly like Kiva |
| Statistics | I couldn’t find total stats on the number of loans, repayment rate etc. They give individual breakup of stats here and it looks quite impressive http://www.rangde.org/current-field-partners.htm |
| Interest paid to lenders | Yes (flat 2%) |
| Countries operating in | India |
| Website | http://vittana.org |
| Tye of loans | Educational (student loans only) |
| How it works? | Just like Kiva, but for students. Lenders pick a student (loans are pre-disbursed, just like Kiva). Students graduate and pay back their loans |
| Repayment Rate | 99.8% |
| Interest paid to lenders? | No |
| Comments | Personally, this is my favorite among all the organizations I came across. It is awesome to support children and students. |
| Website | http://zidisha.org |
| Type of loans | Entrepreneurs |
| How it works? | Like kiva, but with some minor differences. Zidisha pays interest to lenders. Lenders can specify the minimum interest rate they’d like to get, and borrowers specify the maximum interest rates they are willing to pay. Lenders “bid” on loans. That said, Zidisha isn’t a place where you go to make lots of money by getting interest on loans. Profit is the not the motive here, helping entrepreneurs is.Note: You can read our recent interview with Julia Kurnia, founder of Zidisha. |
| Interest Paid to lenders? | Yes (read above) |
| Total Amount lent | 474,003 |
| Number of businesses funded | 808 |
| Number of lenders | 2524 |
| Countries operated in | Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kenya and Senegal. |
2 Responses
Thanks for the information – this is very helpful for a project I’m doing. I’ve also found some other sites:
JantaLoans (http://www.jantaloans.org) is another P2P microfinance organisation that works like Vittana, i.e. education loans only.
There’s also MicroPlace (https://www.microplace.com) and Prosper (http://www.prosper.com/).
Thank you for the comment, Penne. I didn’t know of jantaloans, will check it out and update the list.
Feel free to let us know about your project