Kiva (organization)
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This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (December 2011) |
| Founded | October 2005 |
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| Location | San Francisco, California, United States |
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| Area served | World-wide |
| Focus | Economic development |
| Method | Microcredit |
| Employees | 75[1] |
| Motto | Loans that change lives |
| Website | kiva.org |
Kiva Microfunds (commonly known by its domain name, Kiva.org) is an organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to microfinance institutions in developing countries around the world and in the United States, which in turn lend the money to small businesses and students.[2] It is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization[3] headquartered in San Francisco, supported by loans and donations from its users and through partnerships with businesses and other institutions.[4] Kiva itself does not charge any interest; the loans made by Kiva members are passed interest-free to the independent field partner servicing each loan. These interest rates are disclosed and are discussed in the relevant section on the Kiva website and in this article below.
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[edit] Lending process
Kiva allows microfinance institutions around the world, called "Field Partners", to post profiles of qualified local entrepreneurs on its website, www.kiva.org. Lenders browse and choose an entrepreneur they wish to fund. Kiva aggregates loan capital from individual lenders and transfers it to the appropriate Field Partners to disperse to the entrepreneur chosen by the lender. As the entrepreneurs repay their loans, the Field Partners remit funds back to Kiva. As the loan is repaid, the Kiva lenders can withdraw their principal or re-lend it to another entrepreneur.
Lenders' funds are transferred to Kiva through PayPal, which does not collect its usual fees in this case.[5] It is possible to pay by credit card through PayPal's website, even without a PayPal account, but a PayPal account is needed to withdraw funds.[6] Field Partners charge interest to their borrowers, although Kiva claims to keep track of how much interest is charged and will not work with those charging unfair interest rates.[7] Kiva lenders do not receive any interest because Kiva is not registered with the US Government as a broker.[8]
[edit] History
Kiva was founded in October 2005 by Matt Flannery and Jessica Jackley.[9] The couple's initial interest in microfinance was inspired by a 2003 lecture given by Grameen Bank's Muhammad Yunus at Stanford Business School. Jessica Jackley, formerly Jessica Flannery,[10] worked at the school and invited Matt Flannery to attend the presentation; this was the first time Matt had heard of microfinance, but it served as a "call to action" for Jessica. Soon after, Jessica began working as a consultant for the nonprofit Village Enterprise Fund, which worked to help start small businesses in East Africa. While visiting Jessica in Africa, Matt and Jessica spent time interviewing entrepreneurs about the problems they faced in starting ventures and found the lack of access to start-up capital was a common theme. After returning from Africa, they began developing their plan for a microfinance project that would grow into Kiva, which means "unity" in Swahili.[11][12] Kiva is run by a team with experience in business, microfinance, and technology.[13]
[edit] Statistics
As of August 12, 2011, Kiva has distributed $233,493,400 in loans from 614,671 lenders. A total of 309,076 loans have been funded. The average loan size is $384.39. Its current repayment rate is 98.79%.[14] According to Alexa, Kiva's website ranks in the top 15,000 websites on the Internet.[15]
The total costs of running Kiva in 2008 totaled $4.7M. During 2008, the user base released about $37M to low-income entrepreneurs listed on the Kiva website. So, for every dollar spent on operations, Kiva lenders sent about $8 for loans.[16]
[edit] Issues
[edit] Pre-disbursement of funds
When Kiva began, lenders chose who could borrow their money. Since then, the system has changed, so that loans are disbursed to borrowers before their stories are posted to Kiva's website.[17][18] This is disclosed on Kiva's site; each loan proposal states whether funds were pre-disbursed. Thus, lenders' loan funds are likely to go to borrowers other than those chosen by the lenders.[17] However, since the pay-back behaviour of the specific borrower chosen by the lender does influence whether or not the lender gets his funds back (except when an MFI has chosen to cover for borrower defaults), there is at least some connection between the lender and the specific borrower. Whether lenders' preferences are used for lender preference trend analysis by any field partners or Kiva is not stated. Kiva's response has been to keep pre-disbursing but be clearer about the process.[19]
[edit] Interest rates
Some people, including microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus, argue that the interest rates of many microcredit institutions are unreasonably high. In his latest book he argues that microfinance institutions that charge more than 15% above their long-term operating costs should face penalties.[20]
For example, in 2009 micro-loans from Kiva partners in Guatemala averaged 23.16% for the equivalent of US$430 lent on average, comparable to the commercial BanRural rate of 24.5% for a loan of US$635.[21] (For reference, the inflation rate for Guatemala typically varies between 5 and 10% and was just 0.62% in 2009.[22])
Kiva defends the interest rates of its lenders, however, saying its field partners provide much better rates than local alternatives, but must charge what they do because "the costs of making a micro-loan in the developing world are higher versus larger loans in the West."[23]
In order to remedy the high interest and fee rates charged to the end recipients of loans, the nonprofit Zidisha launched the first direct peer-to-peer microlending platform in 2009. Like Kiva, Zidisha allows individual lenders to "crowd fund" loans for low-income entrepreneurs in developing countries. Zidisha's innovation centered on eliminating intermediary field partners and designing its platform to facilitate direct interaction between lenders and computer-literate borrowers, and eBay-style performance tracking. The computer literacy requirement excludes many of the poorest borrowers, who may still be served by Kiva field partners. However, Zidisha's direct lending approach has lowered interest and fee costs for borrowers to an average of 8%, while allowing lenders to earn interest on the loans as well.[24] It remains to be seen whether Kiva will move toward offering a similar direct lending option as internet use becomes more widespread in developing countries.
[edit] Field Partner fraud and institutional weakness
In an article for the journal innovations, Matt Flannery identified six microfinance institutions (MFIs) that he saw as involved in "serious fraud".[25] These are the six that he identifies:
- Women’s Economic Empowerment Consort (WEEC) -- The woman who started the MFI died, and when her husband took over, the MFI became disorganised. Money that was intended for entrepreneurs was used to pay WEEC debts.[26]
- Supporting Enterprises for Economic Development (SEED) -- In this instance Kiva pursued a legal case, however, it had not made much progress as of April 2008.[27]
- Women's Initiative to Eradicate Poverty (WITEP) -- Flannery was personally involved in this investigation as discussed in the article that he wrote for innovations. Moses Onyango, a former friend of Matt and Jessica Flannery, was involved in creating a shell MFI to funnel money to himself.[25][28]
- Rural Agency for Development (RAFODE) -- Flannery writes that this MFI embezzled funds away from borrowers who "never saw a penny." [25][29]
- Afrique Emergence & Investissements (AE&I) -- A Kiva fellow was requested by AE&I to help get operations back to normal after severe computer problems. She notified the central office of irregularities and after an investigation, Kiva closed the partnership. (AE&I paid back all outstanding loans to Kiva). However, the MFI has published a rebuttal and other partners of AE&I including AfriCap Microfinance Investment Company, and OIKOCREDIT stood by it.[30][31] AE&I has now been picked up by another online microfinance platform called MyC4.[32]
- MIFEX—Flannery writes that the loan sizes were inflated by 30 percent, and the excess was used to pay operational costs.[25][33]
Although cases of fraud do exist, Kiva made the following statement on the partner page for SEED:
- Please realise that our audit of SEED uncovered a true exception to the norm; the vast majority of our Field Partners administer your loans with the highest integrity. Kiva will continue to audit Field Partners to monitor the integrity of your loan and to make our website a model for transparency in international development.[27]
[edit] Full-repayment frequency uncertainty
Whether defaults are extremely low has been questioned on the ground that a field partner may pay Kiva for loans defaulted to the field partner in order to maintain the field partner‘s good credit with Kiva.[17] Whether interest rates collected by field partners are enough to pay for significant defaults depends on local economic conditions for each field partner.
[edit] Bloodsports
There have also been concerns about loans which are intended for bloodsports, including cockfighting.[34][35]
Some lenders pulled their funds (often moving them to other microfinance sites such as United Prosperity, Wokai, Energy in Common, etc.) after repeated inquiries did not get Kiva to change its policy.[36]
[edit] Interest rates
According to its web site, Kiva quotes interest rates as the "self reported average rate charged by the Field Partner to the entrepreneur."[23] As of January 7, 2010, 35.21% is the Average Interest Rate and Fees Borrowers Pay (Portfolio Yield) to All Kiva Field Partners.
As of January 2011, there are a total of 161 field partners listed on the Kiva website and their status is as follows: 88 Active, 9 Paused, 29 Pilot and 35 Closed.[37] The following table shows the interest rate charged by a sampling of field partners.[37]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Kiva Facts & History". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/facts. Retrieved September 19, 2010.
- ^ "What We Do". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=about. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "What kind of organization is Kiva?". http://na3.salesforce.com/_ui/selfservice/pkb/PublicKnowledgeSolution/d?orgId=00D500000006svl&lang=1&id=50150000000IIX2&retURL=%2Fsol%2Fpublic%2Fsolutionbrowser.jsp%3Fsearch%3Dnon-profit%26cid%3D02n50000000DUOS%26orgId%3D00D500000006svl%26lang%3D1%26t%3D4&ps=1&pPv=1. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ ""Supporters"". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/supporters. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "When I pay through PayPal, is PayPal taking a fee?". http://na3.salesforce.com/_ui/selfservice/pkb/PublicKnowledgeSolution/d?orgId=00D500000006svl&lang=1&id=50150000000IDir&retURL=%2Fsol%2Fpublic%2Fsolutionbrowser.jsp%3Fsearch%3Dpaypal%26cid%3D02n50000000DUOS%26orgId%3D00D500000006svl%26lang%3D1%26t%3D4&ps=1&pPv=1. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ "Kiva FAQ: Do I have to use PayPal?". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/help/questions?subtopic=Completing%20the%20Payment%20Process#question1. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Do Kiva.org’s Field Partners charge interest to the borrowers?". http://na3.salesforce.com/_ui/selfservice/pkb/PublicKnowledgeSolution/d?orgId=00D500000006svl&id=50150000000IIav&retURL=%2Fsol%2Fpublic%2Fsolutionbrowser.jsp%3Fcid%3D02n50000000DV8W%26orgId%3D00D500000006svl&ps=1. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ "Will I get interest on my loan?". http://na3.salesforce.com/_ui/selfservice/pkb/PublicKnowledgeSolution/d?orgId=00D500000006svl&id=50150000000IDlS&retURL=%2Fsol%2Fpublic%2Fsolutionbrowser.jsp%3Fsearch%3Dinterest%26cid%3D02n50000000DUOS%26orgId%3D00D500000006svl%26t%3D4&ps=1. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ ""Kiva Background"". Kiva.org. December 24, 2008. http://www.kiva.org/about/background/. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Kiva Facts". kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/facts. Retrieved March 31, 2010.
- ^ Flannery, M. (2007). "Kiva and the Birth of Person-to-Person Microfinance". Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 2: 31–56. doi:10.1162/itgg.2007.2.1-2.31.
- ^ Narang, Sonia (2006). "Web-Based Microfinancing". New York Times Magazine (New York Times). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section4.t-6.html?ex=1323406800&en=72e9b0bb93393330&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ "KIVA Staff". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/people/. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "KIVA Stats". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/stats. Retrieved August 12, 2011.
- ^ Hendrik, Gerrit (August 12, 2009). "Kiva.org traffic details". Alexa.com. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?site0=kiva.org&site1=&site2=&site3=&site4=&y=r&z=1&h=300&w=610&range=3y&size=Medium&url=kiva.org. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Kiva Blog - Contours of a Crisis (II)". Socialedge.org. http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/kiva-chronicles/archive/2009/01/07/contours-of-a-crisis-ii. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ a b c Roodman, David (Oct. 2, 2009). "Kiva Is Not Quite What It Seems". Center for Global Development. http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/kiva-is-not-quite-what-it-seems.php. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
- ^ Stephanie Strom (Nov. 8, 2009). "Confusion on Where Money Lent via Kiva Goes". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Kiva&st=cse. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
- ^ Flannery, Matt (Oct. 12, 2009). "Matt Flannery, Kiva CEO and Co-Founder, Replies". Center for Global Development. http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/matt-flannery-kiva-ceo-and-co-founder-replies.php. Retrieved January 16, 2010.
- ^ Yunus, Muhammad (2007). Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs. pp. 320. ISBN 978-1586486679.
- ^ Shearer, Laura (2009-04-15). "The Coffee Trade Nothing Fair About It". La Cuadra. http://lacuadraonline.com/featured-stories/the-coffee-trade-nothing-fair-about-it/3/. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ "Guatemala inflation rate drops to 25-year low". Reuters. 2009-07-07. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0734249820090707. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ a b "Kiva Help - Interest Rate Comparison". Kiva.org. http://www.kiva.org/about/app.php?page=help&action=InterestRateComparison#AverageInterestRateBorrowerPaysToKivaFieldPartner. Retrieved October 10, 2009.
- ^ "Zidisha Statistics". https://www.zidisha.org/. Retrieved January 10, 2012.
- ^ a b c d Flannery, M. (2009). "Kiva at Four (Innovations Case Narrative: Kiva)". Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization 4 (2): 31–49. doi:10.1162/itgg.2009.4.2.31. http://media.kiva.org/INNOV-SKOLL-2009_flannery.pdf.
- ^ "Women’s Economic Empowerment Consort (WEEC)". Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/partners/6. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ a b "Supporting Enterprises for Economic Development (SEED)". Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/partners/32. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ "Women's Initiative to Eradicate Poverty (WITEP)". Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/partners/11. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ "Rural Agency for Development (RAFODE)". Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/partners/33. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ "Africa Emergence & Investissements (AE&I) response". Africa Emergence & Investissements. http://www.aei-investissements.com/pdf/reaction_to_kiva_web_site.pdf. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- ^ "Africa Emergence & Investissements (AE&I) main site". Africa Emergence & Investissements (AE&I). http://www.aei-investissements.com/. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- ^ "MYC4 forum, partner AE&I". MYC4. https://www.myc4.com/Forum/View/14/11610?page=2. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- ^ "MIFEX". Kiva. http://www.kiva.org/partners/7. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ Flannery, Matt (March 29, 2008). "Cockfighting". Skoll Foundation. http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/kiva-chronicles/topics/cockfighting. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ Smiley, Lauren (February 27, 2008). "Kiva's Microloans Underwriting Cockfighting in Peru". SF Weekly (San Francisco). http://www.sfweekly.com/2008-02-27/news/kiva-s-micro-loans-underwriting-cockfighting-in-peru/. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ "Kivans Against Cockfighting Loans". http://www.kiva.org/team/kacl. Retrieved September 15, 2010.
- ^ a b c "Our Field Partners". http://www.kiva.org/about/partners. Retrieved January 10, 2012.