[mfheretic]

Correct, I failed to mention this in my original post. My fee was $35 (3.5% of $1000), and my total bids have been $1818 over the period, so this equates to about 2% overall. Unsure if I have to pay this 3.5% to get the funds out again. Have you thought of speaking to PayPal to see if they would waive this fee as they did with Kiva? They seem fairly sympathetic to microfinance, and this is an innovate model. However, they may perceive you as a competitor to Kiva, particularly as they now have Kiva Zip, and I imagine Kiva themselves would prefer to retain exclusivity in this waiver of trasnaction fees. No harm in asking. Post their response here!

[jkurnia]

We do not charge any fee for withdrawals - we cover that cost ourselves so that lenders may withdraw their full balance at any time.

We did request free payment processing for Zidisha, and have also asked Kiva to request the same deal for Zidisha. Two years ago we even had an online petition for PayPal to waive fees for Zidisha loans - https://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/paypal-stop-charging-....

Thus far, our applications for free or heavily discounted payment processing have been turned down, and we continue to seek more cost-effective options.