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Kiva Launches A Fund For Refugees And You Can Help
It may not seem so now, but whether people would loan money to a stranger was a pretty big question when Kiva.org started in 2005. One billion dollars later, the answer is a resounding yes.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- Kiva, microfinance, microlending, migrants, migration, refugees
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The Rise of a New Asset Class: Can ‘PAYGo Finance’ Connect Investors to Low-Income Customers?
Lendable has pioneered a marketplace lending platform that connects alternative lenders in East Africa with impact and institutional debt investors, to provide financing for leased assets like solar panels and motorcycles. According to BFA, providing these alternative lenders with structured debt financing could potentially give rise to a new asset class: PAYGo finance. If successful in raising funds from investors at scale, the Lendable approach could bring financing for low-income individuals full circle.
- Categories
- Energy, Financial Inclusion, Investing
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Kiva.org Reaches $1 Billion Milestone in Crowd-Funding Loans Disbursed Globally
Kiva provides financial support to low-income borrowers, enabling individuals from all over the globe who have few other opportunities for financial assistance to receive a critically needed loan.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
- Tags
- Kiva, microfinance, microlending
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Yes, microlending reduces extreme poverty
Currently, 836 million people – or 12% of the world’s population – experience extreme poverty, living off less than US$1.25 a day. Using data from 106 developing countries from between 1998 and 2013 to examine the efficacy of microlending as a poverty-reduction tool, I found that just a 10% increase in the gross microfinance loan portfolio per client could cut this number by 1.26%.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion, Investing
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Making Microcredit Charities Better
While supporting women entrepreneurs is commendable, no data suggest that lending to women—or men, for that matter—is a miracle poverty cure. That’s primarily because lenders commonly charge the poor about 25% for loans. Six randomized studies of microlending programs from 2003 to 2012, published in the American Economic Journal, found no correlation with improved welfare. Although the loans can be helpful in some situations, there’s no evidence of a transformational effect.
- Categories
- Financial Inclusion
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