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)
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
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.
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