MICROCAPITAL STORY: Kiva.org Launches Email Alerts to Notify Users about Microfinance Lending Opportunities

Kiva.org, the online microfinance brokerage has come up with a service called KivaAlerts which notifies users by email about loans of their choice which appears on Kiva.org. KivaAlerts is a simple to configure interface that enables users to setup alerts for entrepreneur loan criteria that they are usually most interested in. The users are then notified by email whenever lending opportunities satisfying their criteria arises. According to the KivaAlerts team, this initiative is an effort to address the issues of information overload that interested donors typically face. The idea is to focus specifically on preferences of each interested donor and to present only information that are of interest to the donors.

Users can configure alerts based on the following loan criteria:

– Loans from Countries

– Loans from Field Partners, where users can choose from a list of lending organizations

– Loans from Partner with Rating, where users can specify the risk level associated with partners based on existing rating information

– Loans for Primary Activity, where users can choose from a list of industries and activities (eg: agriculture, tailoring, carpentry, etc)

– Loans for Amount, where users can specify the loan range that they are looking to lend.

The Kiva team believes that with the growing attention and importance of emails in today’s world, these email alerts would play a key role in bringing important issues to the notice of users. Technical assistance for Kiva to develop these alerts was provided by BetterLabs, a small product incubation firm focused on helping businesses create working prototypes of their product concepts.

Kiva.org, a San Francisco-based online microfinance brokerage was incorporated in 2005. Till date, it has partnered with 94 microfinance institutions (MFIs) spread across 41 countries and has facilitated the transfer of over USD 55 million in loans from over 418,537 Kiva.org users to over 80,000 entrepreneurs in the developing world. The average repayment rate among all partners is 97.15 percent, the average default rate 2.85 percent and the average loan size is USD 436.34. The minimum lending amount is USD 25. Microcapital has provided extensive coverage on Kiva’s launch, growth and operations as a non-governmental organization (NGO).