Zidisha is a microlending site that connect borrowers in impoverished countries with lenders in peer to peer model. It differs from Kiva in that it doesn’t charge high field partner loan rates, and also passes an interest rate back to the lender.
I’ve written about them twice, first as an intro, and then as a follow up:
- Zidisha an Introduction (comparing with Kiva)
- Zidisha Revisited (what I learned after jumping in and lending through them)
These posts have been around for a while, yet are getting new comments from people who are disgruntled by the policy changes of Zidisha. The latest one, that I was alerted to via these comments is that they will auto lend if you haven’t funded a loan in 60 days.
In fairness, when I checked my inbox Zidisha did announce this also, but it was one of those ‘Important, Terms and Conditions Change’ emails that I tend to blank out….
My Account is locked out
Zidisha has made 18 loans on my behalf, that I just learned about today writing this post. What’s more, I can’t stop the auto lending! In order to change settings to my account I have two options:
- Make a loan (pretty hard when they have loaned out all my money)
- Make a withdrawal
So I did the latter. I withdrew the remaining balance of $8.30 before they relend it. Apparently this will allow me to make my own lending decisions again. Unless I forget to pull it out again every 60 days I guess… a very uncomfortable feeling.
I can see why Zidisha wanted to use this dormant money, but in my case (and in the case of many others) we feel that the human factor behind P2P lending is finding and helping others. In my experience I had not loaned any more funds after the initial ones were so bad. But then one day a borrower from a third world country called me out on Twitter asking for help to build a business, and linked to his loan on Zidisha, so I dived back in.
Not all charities allow for such a choice, so I know you could easily donate $100 or so a year and never know what it is used for, but the essence of a micro-loan site that focuses on peer to peer lending is clearly missing from this new approach.
I’m pulling all my money out.
Dear Matt,
Thanks for sharing your experience with Zidisha.
I wanted to let you know that we have been reversing loans made on behalf of inactive lenders whenever they request it for some time. (See http://forum.zidisha.org/threads/how-to-permanently-opt-of-continuous-relending.1924/.) Today we made that option explicit in the continuous relending page, so that anyone who wishes to undo the loans made when their accounts were inactive can do so.
Of course this offer extends to you and your readers as well: simply email service at zidisha.org if you would like to undo any loans made on your behalf, and we’ll reverse them and return the credit to your account right away.
We also have on our roadmap a way for lenders to turn off relending without making a loan bid or withdrawal. A remote web developer in India and I are Zidisha’s only full-time staff, so improvements to the website are not always made as quickly as at a large organization like Kiva. That said, I expect this feature as well will be implemented within a few weeks.
Regards,
Julia Kurnia
Director, Zidisha
Hi Julia,
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for listening. I would never want to take back the money, but I would love to be able to turn off lending and pick and choose when and to whom I would lend. When that happens please let me know and I’d be happy to write an update.
Best
Matt
Two months later and Zidisha lenders are still waiting for that policy to be changed… It’s still not possible to turn off autolending!
Meanwhile Zidisha was able to implement lots of other changes and features.
Including turning off lender interest, but increasing the ‘service’ fee to 5% of the loan amount (thus increasing the cost for short-term loans, often small 1st and 2nd loans) as well as increasing the cost to participate to zidisha to [drumroll]: a whopping $44.39 (in the case of Kenya)
Here the costs a first-time borrower will have to pay for an initial $50 loan in Kenya
Cost of this loan
Service Fee: 5% of $50.00 = $2.50
Cost to join Zidisha
Upon joining Zidisha, [borrower] will pay a lifetime membership fee of$11.10. [borrower] will also deposit $33.29 into the Zidisha Members Loan Fund. These costs are only paid once and will entitle [borrower] to lifetime Zidisha membership.
That leaves poor [borrower] with $5.61 with which to repay $52.50!!!
How does it feel to be a loan shark?
And this on a online platform that does not miss a opportunity to “feel good” they are not Kiva where allegedly field partners charge outrageous interest rates [*]. Nobody can do some simple math and calculate the costs? Or those who do get banned and censored?
[*] Strangely enough in this comparison Julia Kurnia/Zidisha always forgets to mention (a) Kiva Zip where borrowers receive loans at zero interest and zero fees, (b) Kiva partners that charge zero interest — zero for real, not like Zidisha…
Thanks for helping me to access your loans. I applied, received and I have repaid the loan. I want to apply for a another one, kindly help
I can’t apply my next loan because my Zidisha app not opening, please help
you guys are amazing but now i don’t understand as to why my account is failing to function after i cleared the last loan and now that i want to apply again
Please why you blocked my account please I think you did something wrong in my account
dear Leaders
I am a Zidisha member but my account have been blocked by Zidisha. I tried to send a message but could not do so on the page.
thanks.