Comments on: Kiva vs. Microplace

By: ericnguyen

ericnguyen — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:21:13 +0000

Ongoing note: I’ve made loans on both sites for a few years, now, and I find that Kiva is slightly more “fun” to invest in, but Microplace seems to have a great deal more scale, as I predicted. Kiva often runs out of opportunities to invest, whereas Microplace is able to absorb more investment.

By: ericnguyen

ericnguyen — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:07:06 +0000

Yes, that's definitely a difference between the two. Kiva is financially able to give interest to its investors; it's the regulatory hurdles that they were unwilling to best that prevented them from doing that. Microplace wwas able to do it.

As for the interest rates, you can see them on the right side of the listings for each individual project. They vary in term and rate, between 2 and 3 years and 1.5% and 3%, from what I've seen.

By: Eric E

Eric E — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:55:53 +0000

Yes, its great to see both these sites getting deserved attention.

Another important distinction between Kiva.org and MicroPlace.org is that MicroPlace says it pays interest. I wish I new more about this, e.g. how much, but a very quick search of their site later, and I'm still left wondering. I must have missed something.

Does anyone know more about this?

By: Dougie FRESH

Dougie FRESH — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:12:54 +0000

Thanks for the in depth post!

I've recently returned from my own charitable mission (tuxedotravels.com) and have to say it's AMAZING how much can be accomplished for a surprisingly tiny amount in some of these places.

For example we bought fertilizer fofor an entire vietnamese village, shoes for an entire Kyrgyz orphanage and put a rehabilitated Nepalese sex-slave through school for a year - EACH FOR AROUND $100.

Of course there's MANY people that need help, but many hands make light work and it's wonderful to see organizations like KIVA and Microplace taking off!

Hooray for good people!

By: orange

orange — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 18:39:11 +0000

thanks for the introduction and comparison, eric. i’m interested to hear how your experiences go, and will definitely keep these sites on my radar.