

Kiva is matching loans for first time donors - ByteMuse
http://www.kiva.org/celebrate6

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waitwhat
Something people should be more aware of regarding Kiva...

Ignore the pictures of the people you are purportedly lending to, their
projects, and even their country. That is pure marketing.

If you read the small-print <http://www.kiva.org/about/how/even-more> you will
see that you aren't lending to these people at all, but actually making zero-
interest, low-risk, short-term loans to micro-finance institutions. (That
said, I do have a couple of hundred dollars in Kiva myself.)

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nodata
That's not quite true is it - if that person defaults you lose your money.

It's similar to switching electricity suppliers (stay with me!) - you don't
get a new cable straight from the electricity company which carries only
"their" electricity, you stick with the same cable and the same electricity
but more of your supplier's electricity gets bought.

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delinka
He said "low risk" not "no risk." Low risk indicates that there's still some
risk that you'll lose your money. I have no idea what that has to do with
electricity supoly lines.

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nodata
My point is that you _are_ lending to individual people since you lose money
when they default on their loan.

(Electricity supply lines: say you sign up for "green" electricity. Nobody
comes and physically cables you up to a separate grid, you just pay for more
green electricity and all the different companies work it the numbers behind
the scenes. Similar to what waitwhat is saying)

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clloyd
If they have faith in the system, then surely this should cost them next to
nothing as everything should be repaid? (Although I'm naive on the accounting
of things like this.)

Great idea though, never lost a $1 through kiva lending.

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knight99
Looks like kiva has 98.87% repayment rate, so a small price to pay to attract
new users.

<http://www.kiva.org/about/risk/overview>

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eekfuh
Brilliant idea. (i just did my first loan with the matching loan.)

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cjg_
A few months ago you could do a trial $25 loan with their money. Guess
matching loans is better though.

