Risk-Based Searching-currency exchange,non-payment,partner rating,delinquency...

[Guest]

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[nuclearspike]

Fantastic app!!!

I'm particularly impressed by the lender search because I was just about to post about a suggestion for a repayment calendar type addition to the Kiva site!  It mentions on the page that the estimated amount for repayment is based on $25 loans, does that count for all data on the page?  If so, do you know if there are plans for the loan amount to be made public or is that blocked for privacy reasons?

I don't think I ever answered part of your question, regarding the assumption of $25 for the other graphs. All graphs other than the repayment are based on loan count, rather than amount. So, let's say you only have two loans one for $2000 and one for $25. Since the amounts are not public, the graphs would only see that as 2 loans and if one was covered for non-payment and the other was not it would show a 50-50 split even though going by actual numbers would have it as 99%-1%. Once kiva allows for authenticated access to the private loan amounts, I'll be able to give the option to make the graphs display by amount or count. That would only give you private data for yourself, of course. If plugging in someone else's lender id it would still only be able to show counts, since you would not be authenticated to get another lender's private data.

Also, once it can display by amounts I could also have it not count money that has already been paid back (but the loan has not been paid in full) as being exposed to non-payment. For example, again if we had two loans where one is exposed to non-payment liability and the other is not but this time both are for the same amount, $100 each. If the loan at risk has been 90% paid back and the no-risk loan is 0% paid back, then only $10 of the $200 is actually still exposed to possibly not being repaid. Currently it would show a 50-50 split of exposure to non-payment by loan count, but by amount, it would be only 5% that is still exposed.

Having said all this, it made me realize that it is possible for me to weight the pie charts by having fractions of a loan left. It could know that if new loan is considered 1, then it can know that .1 of that loan is left (but still not know about amounts). I will look into implementing that.

[JoanW]

What I could show is a month count until full repayment but it may be confusing because it would not always match up with the number listed on the entrepreneur's page. I may also add a new search option of "fully repaid within x months." Until then, (as others stated) the loans at the top of the results are the shortest length and get longer as you go down the list.

For now I can figure out how far down the list I want to go - but it would be easier to have a number there - from today until it is paid off (in my account)

In any case - a great app and this is one small detail. Would it make my using the app easier? Yes, will the lack of it stop me from using the app - heck no!

[nuclearspike]

For now I can figure out how far down the list I want to go - but it would be easier to have a number there - from today until it is paid off (in my account)

In any case - a great app and this is one small detail. Would it make my using the app easier? Yes, will the lack of it stop me from using the app - heck no!

Would you rather see it as one of the search criteria on the main page, in the loan results list, or both? I think I know the answer to that question already

[David2051]

Would you rather see it as one of the search criteria on the main page, in the loan results list, or both? I think I know the answer to that question already

I would love to see the number of months till full repayment in the results list.  I can decide how far down the list to go.  (But I don't seem to be able to figure out how many months to go from a last payment date...)      

I don't have any issues with the $25 loan assumption, as I always loan only $25 and figure to leave some for others...  I have wished that Kiva's numbers would reflect how much is still to be repaid in several areas. 

This is a great app.  Thanks for all your hard work on it!   

[RichardF]

Hi, Paul, great app!!! 

Here's one little request I haven't noticed.  Can you make it possible to allow clicks on the filter lists to work?  It's virtually impossible to match up any but the largest members with the pie slices.

  

[nuclearspike]

Hi, Paul, great app!!! 

Here's one little request I haven't noticed.  Can you make it possible to allow clicks on the filter lists to work?  It's virtually impossible to match up any but the largest members with the pie slices.

  

Unfortunately, the pie chart components by Microsoft are rather lacking in many features and I don't want to worry about altering their source code. I'm currently looking at other options to replace them, but the ones I really want to use mean that I have to move to Silverlight v3 which is newer and has much lower adoption -- that is the direction I'll probably end up going though. I need to start tracking what version of Silverlight people are using to predict the impact of that change.

[nuclearspike]

I have an upgrade that I'm working on. You can see the new one here: http://nuclearspike.com/kiva/beta/

Things I've added:
1) Full Descriptions in whatever languages kiva provides
2) Repayment graphs for each loan
3) Better pie charts
4) Easier way to switch between the Lender Analyzer and Safe Loan Search.
5) More partner information (total loan count and amounts, and the start date) and link to jump to the partner page on kiva.
6) Repayment month count in addition to the date

It currently doesn't support the filtering by clicking on pie charts like the previous one did, which is why I have not yet replaced the previous version. If you can't live without filtering, then just wait for the upgrade to be rolled out when it's all done. But it was a good enough upgrade that I thought I'd put it out there for people.

[Ash]

Hey Nuclear,
awesome app thx! Just wondering where you get the info for the Non Payment Liability or is that inferred from the 0% delinquency? Thx again  

[YowieFreak]

Just wondering where you get the info for the Non Payment Liability

Non Payment liability is one of the variables returned via the API.

A call to something like http://api.kivaws.org/v1/loans/133347.xml returns, toward the bottom, a section such as:

Code:

- <loss_liability>
  <nonpayment>lender</nonpayment>
  <currency_exchange>shared</currency_exchange>
  <currency_exchange_coverage_rate>0.2</currency_exchange_coverage_rate>
  </loss_liability>

That one shows that business id #133347 has non-payment liability assumed by the lender, and currency exchange liability shared between the Partner (up to a rate of 20%) and the lender.

[Ash]

Cool thx Yowie good to know