MicroCredit Buzz #1: What's Going on at Kiva.org? Is PBS/Frontline the Cause?

"Kiva.org did not not stand a chance." That is what the San Francisco-based company formed by a couple and a Ugandan field partner had to put up with. Actually, the owners and all the microlenders who use the site to connect with poor people of the world are happy with this recognition. Maybe they did not expect the story by Frontline/World to cause a stampede to Kiva.org in search of information. Since last Tuesday, the servers running Kiva.org have been out. When the listeners go to the site in search of information, all they found was a page telling them about the PBS report. Kiva.org has received lots of support in the past few days. Some of the listeners wrote feedback or reacted to the story by saying that they want to be part of this enterprise. Listeners from the US and Europe want to use Kiva.org software to reach out to the poor who are seen as non-credit-worthy by major banking institutions. They want to loan small amount of money to women who are in far-flung countries such as the Sub-saharan ones, Uganda and others.

Technology has played a huge role in our lives these days. Young entrepreneurs, IT staff, computer engineers working at posh jobs in the Silicon Valley want their technology to make it easy for poor people to benefit even if it's in small amounts. They want to find something to connect to people. They want to be part of the solution. Establishing Direct contacts with the beneficiaries of their loans seems to be the way of the future.

This is the business that MicroCreditCapital Funding is in. MCC Funding wants to help people in Haiti and elsewhere to develop their own small businesses. MCC Funding's Field Partners will vet and approve the businesses that are going to be posted on this site. Only then will they be able to receive a small loan. Two recipients out of a group of five will make sure to succeed so that the others can receive their loans too. Peer pressure and community responsibility will cause them to make good use of the money they receive.

Microlending Has Come A Long Way: Its History Over The Years

Here is what our research has uncovered. Microcredit comes to give hope to those who would never qualify for a loan in traditional financial institutions. Most of these people can not qualify for a loan because they do not have collateral. MicroCreditCapital looks at substitutes to collateral in its determination and evaluation of good and sound business ideas.

The PBS/Frontline journalist did a series on microfinance. Its journalist Bob Krieger wrote the following, "In most Western or developed countries, it's relatively easy to obtain credit through large banks or money lending institutions. But in the developing world, where many people lack steady employment, credit history or collateral, there's often no way for legitimate small businesses to receive a loan.

In many ways, microfinance changed all of this. Generally defined as small lending to the rural poor in developing countries, microfinance has made great strides in the latter half of the 20th century. The 2006 Nobel Prize awarded to Dr. Muhammad Yunus, one of the founders of modern microfinance, has helped to push the industry even further into the spotlight. But the idea of microfinance has existed for hundreds of years -- in many regions and in many forms.
The Origins of Small Lending

Microlending often starts in small villages, where family members and friends get together in money-sharing groups. Mary Coyle, director of the International Institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, has studied the history of microcredit and says that these savings clubs can be traced to all parts of the world. "They have operated for centuries -- probably since the introduction of currency.'"