So is Kiva an authorised institution,is you money safe ,do you receive interest on your donation?
I have not looked at the site as yet |
I'm new to this but as far as I can work out it is an authorised non profit organisation that began in 2005. As with any loans there are risks and you are not guaranteed return of your loan.
There seems to be a fairly rigid set of protocols that Kiva have in place to check their 'field partners' who administer the funds to the 'entrepreneurs'. And before you choose who to loan to you can check the field partners risk rating, default rate, delinquency rate, so it is up to you to determine the risk you are willing to take. I don't believe you receive interest on your loan and Kiva lend to their field partners interest free but I think they do charge interest to the entrepreneurs.
After saying all that this was a risk that I was more than willing to take and in fact my first loan is probably one of the riskier ones I saw, but that is who I wanted to lend my money to. If you take time to look at the website, you will see how many defaulted on loan repayments (seems minimal).
And girl, that is what my friend does, she always loans to the single mums :-x