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what's the interest rate?
This always bothered me about Kiva.org. My money provides the collateral to secure loans for people that would have difficulty getting a loan otherwise. All good so far. But then the loan company charges 20%+ of interest. Wtf? I have already collateralized the loan, why are they still charging that level of interest?
20-40% is still okay. Payday loans in those amounts are usually 200-400% (APR) in the US, or even twice that. In Haiti the official interest rate has been ~7-30%, now 17%. Real interest rate seems to be -14% at the moment because of inflation, historically it was ~7% to 0%.
So 20% is actually an amazing deal, especially if you consider that processing costs are much higher for micro loans, proportionally speaking.
Whoever is handing out these loans must barely be making a profit at all. I assume they are non-profit?
But I'm not sure how it works in detail, it might be a different picture with dollar loans.
It says "low interest" on their website: https://www.smallholderfarmersalliance.org/programs
They've had 100% repayment rate for over a decade. One of the quirks of the program is that women band together with other women to ensure the loan is paid back. The maximum loan term duration is 6 months.
NB: All of this information is from the alliance. I haven't seen anything from a third party to verify the claims.
All those subprime lenders had to go somewhere where there isn't as much regulation...