One on One, One by One: Person-to-person Micro-lending with Kiva

Within our own personal circles of trust, most Americans are used to lending 10 or even 1000 bucks to a friend or relative. Intimacy tends to blur the agreement and it becomes difficult to quantify the “loan.” It’s not so easy to say that a child owes their parents for having been raised, or that a friend owes another friend for a gift. This blurring is set somewhat straight when individuals draw clearer boundaries between themselves. Financial intermediaries have evolved well to serve this purpose, but the evolution continues. As of 2005, a new breed of intermediary has entered the microfinance scene – online person-to-person lending platforms.