[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.

[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.

[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)

[waitwhat]

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

Actually, it's your assertion that is not quite true.

It certainly used to be the case that "We give Field Partners the option to cover [...] entrepreneur defaults." [1] And there was indeed evidence at the time that Field Partners were doing just that. [2]

Although they have removed this explicit wording, it isn't clear that doing this is no longer allowed, and there is some evidence that the practice is continuing: Only 7 out of 128 pilot or active Field Partners report a default rate of more than 1%; indeed, around three-quarters of them report a default rate of 0.00%. [3] Frankly, these statistics are unbelievable unless we accept that most Field Partners still cover entrepreneur defaults.

So if the end-borrower defaults, you might lose money. But rather more likely is that the Field Partner will cover the loss themselves as an operating cost, not report any of this to Kiva, and you will be none-the-wiser.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20091117123031/http://www.kiva.or...

[2] http://blog.givewell.org/2009/10/13/kiva-repayment-data/

[3] http://www.kiva.org/partners

[kanamekun]

Kiva has been explicit that covering defaults is no longer allowed:

<< Feb 10, 2010

Going forward, when a Field Partner uploads a loan request, they will no longer be able to choose the option of covering borrower default.

For roughly a year, Kiva allowed its Field Partners the option to cover entrepreneur defaults. This meant that even if an entrepreneur you supported couldn't repay their loan, their Field Partner could opt to pay you back anyway.

Kiva originally decided to offer this option because it was more efficient to manage repayments on an institutional level. But after receiving feedback from you, we’ve realized that Kiva lenders are actually looking for a stronger connection between the lender and the entrepreneur.

Letting lenders take on the risk of a loan allows lenders to tie their loan dollars to the success of the borrowing entrepreneur - providing a connection that’s much more personal.

This change also allows the repayment statistics that we show on Kiva to represent of borrower repayments rather than institutional repayments; giving you a better depth of information to help you choose your loans. >>

http://www.kiva.org/updates/kiva/2010/02/10/update-on-recent...

[waitwhat]

Thanks for finding that.

However, only 7 out of 128 pilot or active Field Partners report a default rate of more than 1%; indeed, around three-quarters of them report a default rate of 0.00%.

These statistics just don't pass the smell test unless Field Partners are still covering entrepreneur defaults.