Kiva
Kiva, first P2P microfinance system
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003664.html
"A new microfinance group, Kiva, intends to take a different course: they've built the world's first peer-to-peer, distributed microloan website."
Kiva's first country of focus is Uganda, where the Internet is available even in poor rural areas. Lenders may loan money through kiva.org, which lists businesses in need of funding and provides background on the entrepreneur starting the enterprise. Individuals may makes loans in increments as small as $25, and can expect to receive repayment, without interest, at the end of the loan term, which typically runs between six and 12 months. Since Kiva's source of capital is charitably-minded individuals, it is able to provide more flexible loan terms than traditional financial institutions. To date Kiva has funded 13 small enterprises in Uganda, including a livestock business, a medicine shop, several produce businesses, a fish monger and a clothing reseller. Two of the entrepreneurs have already repaid their loans in full. The enterprises Kiva is working with are asking for loans averaging $500, and the average lender is loaning between $25 and $100. Kiva was founded by Matthew and Jessica Flannery, a California couple who have lived in central Africa; Jessica Flannery worked for the Village Enterprise Fund, a non-profit which has granted seed money to Kiva. They argue that a one-to-one process is inherently more transparent than contributing to a charity or NGO, which then redistributes the donations; just as important, making a direct microloan gives the lender a greater sense of engagement than would an indirect donation. Individual lenders can select precisely which business receives the loan, and will in turn receive regular updates on the start-up's progress:
Throughout the duration of loan repayment, as a lender, you will be sent regular (usually every month) email updates about the progress of your sponsored business' progress. Updates include things like: information on loan repayment progress; photos of the entrepreneur and perhaps the new capital equipment they've been able to purchase because of the loan; narratives on business growth; anecdotes about the entrepreneur's family improving their standard of living; news about local seasons or current events that might affect your sponsored business; and more. Content comes from our staff as well as from the recipients themselves (via our staff ).
Remember, these are loans, not charitable donations. 100% of the loan amount goes to the selected business; so far, no businesses have defaulted on their credit. Because these are loans, the "same" money can have a socially beneficial effect over and over again. A $50 loan, once repaid, can be immediately loaned out again, helping another start-up. Over time, multiple new businesses can receive microcredit support from a single initial loan. "
The introduction by Worldchanging commentators show the peer to peer ethos at work, in their rejection of NGO-mediated microloans:
"But the notion of do-good institutions doling out money to recipients has something of a 20th century character. While there are open-source models for microfinance, they generally seem to be intended to assist the creation of more microcredit NGOs."
Kiva is at http://www.kiva.org/index.php ; Open-source based software support for microfinance projects, at http://www.mifos.org/