India

My First Unitedprosperity Loan Guarantee

wiseclerk

I just guaranteed $25 of a loan to Sakho Devi and group, Ritudih, India via Unitedprosperity.org. United Prosperity has launched on May 28th. See my earlier United Prosperity review including an interview with CEO Bhalchander Vishwanath for more information on the concept.

Signing up and selecting the loan went smoothly. For the requested loan of 1,052 US$ a guarantee of 579 US$ needs to be raised.

Sakho Devi has a grocery shop of her own, with which she earns her living. She has applied for a microloan to expand her small grocery shop, so that she can meet the demand from customers.

The listing also states some data about the partner MFI – Ajiwika Society – it’s interest rate, delinquency rate, default rate and target clients.

Veecus launches peer to peer microfinance

wiseclerk 1 Comment

veecus logoThis week the new social lending service Veecus.com launched. Veecus is a peer-to-peer microfinance network. It allows microentrepreneurs from all over the world to access funds to develop their projects. Lenders can select projects, invest and take part in economic development.

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) supply the loan listings and set the interest rates. Currently there are two MFIs active (VSSU and Oasis Microfinance), which list loans in India and Cameroon offering 3% interest rates.

Lenders can bid in multiples of 20 Euro. Currently uploading money is done via Paypal. Credit card payments will become available next week.

Veecus is run by a french limited company, run and owned by the co-founders Clément Carjat and Baptiste Fabre. Veecus will make money from a “volume-based fee paid by microfinance institutions once they
have received funds for microentrepreneurs projects.” as well as a 1 Euro one-time signup-fee from each lender.

The site is available in english and french language (the company blog is in french only). If you have tried Veecus please share your experiences with the community in our Forum.

The concept has similarities to Kiva and MyC4.

veecus loan listing

Image: One of the current project loan listings.

RangDe – social lending in India

wiseclerk

Rangde logoIndian non-profit RangDe.org attempts to bridge the gap between the developed and the developing India. To fight poverty it wants to make microcredit available to everyone at affordable rates. Individual lenders (investors) can lend as little as 1,000 Indian Rupees (approx. 21 US$).

Rangde statsLenders can select a borrower by browsing profiles. RangDe’s field partners receive and disburse the loan to the borrower, which pays a fixed interest rate of 8.5%, of which the field partner receives 5% and the lender receives 3.5%. Lenders need an Indian bank account to participate.

According to their blog, RangDe evolved over the past 7 months and launched the current version of the website in August.

RangDe aims to finance itself by generating advertising revenues.

RangDe was financed by a 6,000 US$ investment of the founders along with a 33,000 US$ loan by a group of engineers. Additionally India’s ICICI Group’s Foundation for Inclusive Growth has agreed to pay for RangDe’s operations for a year. (Source: Microcapital.org)

Meanwhile Indian p2p lending startup dhanax, which was covered earlier (see: dhanax brings p2p lending to india). received funding from Morpheus Ventures. (Source: WatBlog)

DhanaX brings p2p lending to India

wiseclerk 2 Comments

DhanaX.com introduces p2p lending to India. Lenders can loan to borrowers that a screened by an "agent". The agents typically are small microfinance organisations, rural technology centers or non goverment organizations. One current example is the SOS Family Strength Organisation of Dr. Hermann Gmeiner. Since there is no established credit rating system in India, agents will check the ability of the borrower to repay the loan looking at 40 parameters like borrowers income, stability, occupation.

Some key facts on the dhanaX lending model:

  • Lenders can either loan to a single borrower or diversify and fund multiple loans with small amounts
  • Minimum investment for lenders is 1,000 Rs (approx 23 US$)
  • Maximum investment per lender is 1 million Rs
  • Borrower can borrow up to 20,000 Rs (approx. 460 US$)
  • Fees: dhanaX charges lenders a 100 Rs sign up fee and 1.5% fee of the monthly repayments. Borrowers are charged 6.5% of the loan amount
  • Only Indian nationals can lend, non-resident Indians can lend provided their bank account matches certain specifications

Siva Prasad Cotipalli and Prashant Mishra founded dhanaX using family and friends, prize money from a business plan competition and funds from an angel investor. They talk about the aspects of entrepreneurship in India in a "Making Of" video.

P2P lending Asia

wiseclerk

Some news from p2p lending in Asian markets:

Chinese PPdai.com (see earlier coverage) says it has received a first round of funding from Essentia Private equity. The amount was not disclosed.

On February 27th, Zopa's managing director Giles Andrews mentioned in a webchat "I have also been spending time in Asia and hope that we will launch in 2 very significant markets there in 2008, one of which we may even announce shortly….".
In the webchat Giles Andrews also said regarding the US market: "@Tealer We also think that our "competitors" over there are illegal, and I don't want to go to jail!".
Furthermore Zopa said it plans to launch an (optional) capital guarantee product in the UK market.

See earlier coverage of P2P-Banking.com on the p2p lending markets in Corea, China, India or Japan.

Globefunder announces launch of peer to peer lending in India

wiseclerk

Globefunder announced the launch of Globefunder India, which it claims is the first p2p lending service in India.

GlobeFunder India is now up and running, making us the first online lending marketplace to establish operations there. If you are a lender in India, the good news is that you will soon have a way to capitalize on one of the most vibrant and fastest growing economies in the world.

I checked the website. "Up and running" does not mean that you can register as a lender or request a loan so far. In fact borrowers will not use the website in the Globefunder India process:

While in the U.S. lenders can access borrowers directly, in India the sheer size of the lending market and the regulatory environment necessitate a slightly different approach. In partnership with global managed services provider Intellecap and some of the leading banks in India, GlobeFunder India links lenders and borrowers through a network of well-established Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs).These MFIs are rated based on their credit worthiness similar to individual borrowers on the U.S. GlobeFunder marketplace, and these MFIs in turn work with individual borrowers through their extensive on-the-ground networks.

According to Globefunder there is an unmet loan demand in India of 40 billion US$.

If you are an Indian resident and use Globefunder India, please share your experiences in the Globefunder forum of Wiseclerk.com Thank you.