Late Loaning Lenders thread

The first step is to get their attention.

We thought we had their attention during the Kiva DO when we asked them to let the 'open marketplace' evolve through a staged set of gradual easing of controls. We gave them examples of 'big bang' deregulation vs gradual easing and offered a few case studies, but nobody accepted the offer.

Premal has several times referred to the McKinsey study, which he once said was oriented to evaluation of FX risk management. Whether that also dealt with some 'open marketplace' issues I do not know.

Do you, does anybody, know how the 'open marketplace' was vetting prior to launch? Seems to me we need to find out how to learn from this, Barefoot and Strathmore rather than repeating mistakes. I've asked for information on documentation and tracking of tests, but the only direct comment I have heard from them is the Premal comment, repeated yesterday, that a dozen or so FP's are part of a test. He diod not say whether there was a control, nor how they documented the test design nor results.

How do do this in a productive manner?
I first thought of not loaning this month.....but on second thought it affects the people who badly need credit.....so I need an alternative....

I spent a good part of my walk home from work composing an e-mail in my head to send to Beth. I wanted to get the "nyah nyah nyah I told you so" out of my system.

I think it is significant than Premal was so candid about admitting that he was surprised how many expiries there have been in the May loans. What he doens't knw is how many more would have expired without some tireless effort on the part of the LLL team and people who are sympathetic to the cause.

I think we have their attention. Now the trick will be to leverage that and challenge them to demonstrate why an unregulated marketplace is better than a regulated one. They have made the assertion, but not an argument, whilst we have argued that a regulated marketplace is preferable. So, how do we challenge them to make their case, or to try seeing things from another perspective? It's not good enough for them simply to say that they're committed to the Open Marketplace. Now that we have some results our case is only stronger.

The key, I think, is to make our case without seeming to oppose Kiva. I would say that I'm not fundamentally opposed to Kiva, but I respectfully disagree with the shift to an Open Marketplace.

They need to learn to trust some of their most knowledgeable and active lenders. Instead, I think they bought in to the ego stroking they got from having Bob Harris interview them.

Beth has been exceedingly kind to me, and understanding of my concerns. I have composed and sent emails, but now have been waiting for a response to email from last Monday. The recent defections from the Kiva team are themselves concerning. I feel incapable of rational response. I am sad.

I would like to craft a letter including lenders from across teams and hope the members of MP, especially those who are passionate about ensuring the expiring loans get a chance. As a team, we have potential, but across teams, especially active teams, we may have a chance to have them hear us. I would also be willing to go to SF at some point in the next month to 'fight' for our cause, letter in hand.

This is purely voluntary and I am happy to represent myself, but I feel that across many teams, there may be a need to come together - MP, LLL, kivafriends, Team Canada, NYC, even FoBH and others. We need to provide statistical evidence of almost all the problems with laissez-faire, including # loans, $ loans, # of lenders, lending power, MFs representing expired borrower's loans, potential $ impact of MFs bottom line...

We should also be prepared to offer solutions - a complaint without resolution is merely a complaint, potential solutions are a call to help.

I think we can work together to plan this out, much of it can be written in MIlepoint, some will have to occur in conversations, and emails (to non MP members). Please let me know your thoughts if you feel this could be a way forward.

Just found the link http://kivany.vijayr.net/expiring_loans.php in the Wiki. What is the Lars ratio?

Thanks for this. I have wasted an enormous amount of time going loan by loan when I could have used this and the Lars ratio to resolve my choices. I fell like an idiot for not finding this long ago.

Thank you!

I ended up with more repayments than expected, and decided to try an intentional loan for an expiring borrower.

Picked Esier, but the loan failed to fund. I'm not discouraged... in to help Myrna.

I have had four loans expire today, three of them to Microfinanzas Prisma, which has a very good record in Peru. Please look out for them, they do not need more pain and they do a very good job.
http://www.kiva.org/partners/71

I read it a method to pick loans that are more likely to close out as funded. Right now there are a huge volume of loans that just will not be funded, so it helps to pick loans with more funding to insure that you actually get your money placed.

Exactly. A low Lars ration gives much higher probability of funding completion than does a high one, although other things are not always equal. I have been blending to low ones a bit today, and all have completed funding, while four with higher Lars ratios expired.

Are there any bots that automate the lending and re-lending based on pre-specified criteria? I could imagine that this would be useful in a few scenarios: to avoid having money sit around in my account unused just because I am traveling or busy... or maybe as a way to keep doing good work as I see if I end up in a coma or dead one day.

Yes. Kiva offers autolending, which does lend automatically based on your specified criteria, and can be set to initiate either whenever you have money in your account or after a selected period of inactivity. See "Auto Lending" under the Account tab on your portfolio page.

The criteria don't extend to something like expiring loans, but you can select countries, sectors, gender and risk rating, and specify whether or not to include a donation to Kiva.

Thanks, this doesn't look bad for a start. One of these days I'll have to look at Kiva's APIs to see if I can build some useful tools.

Help one loan from closing unfunded, please support the latest member picked loan.

Once we fund that loan, someone will pick another entrepreneur to help. We might not be able to help all late loans, but by focusing our efforts on one, we can help someone – rather than wasting our time with good loans that will go unfunded.

This is indeed a good strategy.

Jouko has learned how to use the API and has generated stats on expiries by country from January 1 to May 21. Here's what he has come up with:


How the loans listed from Jan. 1, 2012 to May 21, 2012 6:30 am Kiva time (GMT-8) expired by country.
Columns: country, listed loans, expired loans, listed $ amount, expired $ amount, expiry % (loans & $ amount),
order by expiry % of listed dollar amount:

Armenia--------------- 513----- 122---- $1 131 450------ $308 150...23.78%...27.23%
Azerbaijan------------ 459----- 108------ $759 375------ $195 000...23.53%...25.68%
Tajikistan------------ 1563----- 217---- $1 898 525------ $402 900...13.88%...21.22%
Jordan---------------- 1199---- 206---- $1 209 500------ $247 650...17.18%...20.48%
Iraq--------------------- 361------ 63------ $903 500------ $157 700...17.45%...17.45%
Lebanon--------------- 686---- 109---- $1 103 225------ $191 025...15.89%...17.32%
United States--------- 113------ 13------ $632 875------- $102 875...11.50%...16.26%
Dominican R. -------- 145------ 15------ $442 650-------- $63 475...10.34%...14.34%
Palestine-------------- 469------ 56------ $875 325------- $118 575...11.94%...13.55%
Mongolia-------------- 657------ 61------ $940 075------- $117 900....9.28%...12.54%
Costa Rica----------- 274------- 22------ $343 050-------- $39 900....8.03%...11.63%
Colombia------------ 1262----- 100------ $972 050------ $106 900....7.92%...11.00%
El Salvador--------- 1723------ 116--- $1 096 950------ $112 400....6.73%...10.25%
Togo------------------- 489------- 34------ $353 725------- $34 025....6.95%....9.62%
Georgia--------------- 515------- 38------ $540 400------- $49 900....7.38%....9.23%
Sierra Leone--------- 669------- 50------ $668 175------- $57 475....7.47%....8.60%
Honduras------------- 691------- 33------ $497 475------- $42 525....4.78%....8.55%
Nicaragua----------- 1664------- 90--- $1 155 775------- $97 025....5.41%....8.39%
Ecuador------------- 1846----- 134---- $2 085 975----- $169 275....7.26%....8.11%
Uganda-------------- 1674------ 76----- $1 055 225------- $80 675....4.54%....7.65%
Total (average)--- 50828--- 2294--- $44 551 725--- $3 358 875....4.51%....7.54%
Benin------------------ 546------- 29------ $461 650------- $31 400....5.31%....6.80%
Peru------------------ 4492----- 185---- $3 578 625----- $198 675....4.12%....5.55%
Bolivia----------------- 920------- 45---- $1 218 450-- ---- $65 425....4.89%....5.37%
Kenya---------------- 6589----- 180---- $2 899 525----- $149 150....2.73%....5.14%
Rwanda-------------- 1063------ 35---- $1 125 900------- $45 325....3.29%....4.03%
Kyrgyzstan------------ 458------ 12------ $769 025------- $23 800....2.62%....3.09%
Senegal--------------- 778------ 27------- $790 725------- $22 950....3.47%....2.90%
Philippines---------- 8888------ 84----- $3 145 275------- $62 775....0.95%....2.00%
Mexico---------------- 850-------- 8----- $1 810 625------- $27 600....0.94%....1.52%
Pakistan-------------- 461-------- 4------- $637 050-------- $7 650....0.87%....1.20%
Burundi--------------- 106-------- 1------- $352 800-------- $3 675....0.94%....1.04%
Paraguay------------- 859------ 13---- $1 828 325------- $14 900....1.51%....0.81%
Cambodia----------- 2114------- 8----- $1 621 450------- $10 200....0.38%....0.63%

These countries have no expiries (loans, total amount):
Kosovo--------------- 1---- $1 300
Nepal----------------- 2 ---- $9 400
Albania--------------- 9--- $13 350
Turkey-------------- 17---- $22 650
Cameroon--------- 52---- $26 250
Mozambique----- 102---- $62 400
Haiti----------------- 27---- $86 150
Burkina Faso---- 107---- $91 800
Zambia------------- 22--- $109 275
Liberia------------ 435--- $115 250
Congo------------ 100--- $118 875
Israel--------------- 38--- $128 650
Zimbabwe-------- 108--- $208 850
Indonesia-------- 249--- $245 000
Chile---------------- 81--- $290 625
Mali---------------- 349--- $301 825
Samoa------------ 491--- $310 450
Ghana------------ 681--- $312 800
Ukraine----------- 185--- $353 875
Guatemala------- 389--- $411 050
South Sudan--- 1122--- $412 075
Viet Nam--------- 607---- $487 775
Congo (DRC)--- 164-- - $659 350
Tanzania--------- 176---- $733 825

Sorry for the readability. I'll edit that later today to make it more readable. Running off to work now.

Looked good enough for me to read. Are there stats for just May and/or for 2011? I'd like to know how it is skewing.

Depressing! More countries had expirations that did not! Also from the fact that the % $ amount is greater than % loans, the larger loans were going down (except for one very large one!)

Is it possible to pull out the amount of money that was refunded from expired loans? It would be interesting to know how much money ended up getting tied up in loans that never funded.

Alternately, if there was some way to slow down the new listings -- say be about 8% (or just a little more than what expired), perhaps we would see a balance -- and people would still have an abundance of choice as the number of loans listed is still much greater than before.

BTW, three of my loans just expired, 2 from Tajikistan, 1 from Uganda.

This list is very telling. Not surprised to see so many Azb. and Armenia loans on that list as they tend to be over longer periods which tends to make them more unpopular. As a big fan of Tajik. I've always been aware that they have had an expiry problem. Tajik took a massive beating with 16 loans expiring so far today which must be yet another blow to the MFIs. What is crazy is the Tajik. have an excellent repayment record. There is no logic to the MFIs that are being punished by the open market place.

There are a lot of loans set to expire this week!
26th - 54 loans ($37 450 needed)
27th - 63 loans ($60 150 needed)
28th - 76 loans ($64 925 needed)
29th - 49 loans ($44 500 needed)
30th - 93loans ($117 400 needed)
1st - 340 loans ($380 125 needed)

there is a good chance that people will start to pick them up, but as repayments dry up, these ones will be particularly vulnerable to expiration! To put into perspective, the amount needed for the 26th and 30th is equivalent to the monthly total for Team Europe or Team Obama, for the 27th and 28th - Team Australia or Canada, 30th - FoBH or Christians and for the 1st - Milepoint.

We will need the help of our members to support the loans in the "Helping each other to save some more loans" thread or if you are part of the LLL - their daily Dirty Dozen loans!

I'd added the dots before the percentages by the time you got to it.

I'm sure further stats will be forthcoming.