Wow, microfinance works and Kiva really makes it sing. By having a lender page, you can see how well it works. You just put in $25 into any of a set of activities and you can watch folks repay and their lives get better. Cool!
Tongfamily.com
Tong Family Tips and Tricks
3 responses so far ↓
1 brettm // May 2, 2008 at 16:12
cool site. great “feel good” factor for lenders, but i’m very skeptical on the value to borrowers. microcredit has a history of notoriously high fees interest rates to borrowers.
feels to me like a modern version of payday loans and the national lottery – both very effective taxes on the poor.
it would be great to see some non-profit eat the interest and administration costs so that these loans could be offered zero-interest (or atleast some nominal fee) to the borrowers.
2 Rich // May 3, 2008 at 0:46
I’m not a good judge of this, but talking with my buddy at Unitus, there are just no other sources of credit and the risks are not insignificant, but you probably know more about it. Apparently, low interest isn’t so much the issue as it is having a cooperative of folks who put pressure to pay.
3 brettm // May 6, 2008 at 7:22
i definitley don’t know more about it
... its a new but interesting area to me. thanks for passing on your friends perspective.
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