Press
We’re super honored to have received great press from publications big and small, far and wide. Here are a few of our favorite shout outs.This type of lending is possible in Africa now because many people have access to the internet.
I'm excited to have Zidisha as one of our most recent Y Combinator funded non-profit organizations... Just as Airbnb connects travelers directly to hosts, Zidisha connects lenders directly to borrowers, providing not only an affordable loan, but also a personal connection.
Zidisha has committed to completely eliminating the middleman... The organization sees itself as an eBay-style platform because it allows borrowers and lenders to interact directly without involving anyone else.
Zidisha deserves attention for its own achievement. It has brought traditional microfinance clients into the same virtual space commonly thought to be the domain of the middle class, and demonstrated that this can be done sustainably.
What makes this nonprofit unique is that because it is peer-to-peer, the interest rates for the entrepreneur are very low.
Zidisha’s minimalist approach sets it apart. The system cuts out intermediary banks and loan officers altogether, relying instead on cheap, bare-minimum tech such as cellphone money transfer systems... Because of Zidisha’s low-cost operations, the cost of a loan is just a 5 percent service fee to help cover the marginal cost of the loan, mostly money transfer fees.
The average interest rate charged for microfinance loans worldwide is about 40% and even charitable loans funded through Kiva are passed on to the end borrower at an average interest rate of 35%. By eliminating intermediaries, Zidisha has been able to reduce cost to the borrower to just 5% of the loan amount.
Zidisha cuts out the middleman by allowing direct peer-to-peer global lending, which capitalizes on the expanding mobile-banking sector in emerging markets.
Zidisha forgoes using debt collectors, whose use can add upwards of 35 percent interest to the loans they service. Instead, the organization relies on its vetting process and the relationships it establishes with borrowers.
By enabling the efficient flow of capital across international boundaries and wealth divisions, and by allowing lenders to connect with and send money directly to borrowers, peer-to-peer micro-lending has the ability to have an enormous impact — on a global scale.
Zidisha is cutting out the middlemen to enable direct lending to the entrepreneurs... So far, the company has processed $1.8 million in loans to 5,000 entrepreneurs in Africa and Asia, and only needs 10 percent in fees to cover its cost (that’s versus the 30-80 percent Kiva requires).
Because there is no intermediary in charge of the loan, the cost of borrowing is much less than with other microfinance sites.
Zidisha is the world's first direct peer-to-peer micro-lending platform, providing Internet users the chance to directly loan money to entrepreneurs in the developing world.
Zidisha’s success stands as a challenge to the standard microfinance model... they’ve shown that different target populations can be served in different ways. Zidisha borrowers are aspiring middle class. Many of them are small business owners who form the backbone of a nation’s economy... As their business becomes more successful, this will have outsized impacts on their communities. Zidisha makes that possible.