Worried about loans expiring unfunded?

[Guest]

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[MarkhamX]

Is anyone worried that loans will go unfunded?  Theres nearly 8 pages of loans that expire in 5 days.  Seems like a lot of money to come up with.





moderator edit to title of this first post in the thread to make it more informative

[alan]

Hi MarkhamX,

See this thread and the Late Loaning Lenders Team. We'd love to have you as a team member!

alan


[edited to make post title consistent]

[JoanW]

Just to clarify - the loans won't go unfunded...they will be unfunded by Kiva lenders....in many cases the loan was funded before it was even posted on Kiva 

There has been much talk (here, Kiva teams, and other places around the web) about Kiva thinking _____ (insert new idea of the week here) is a good idea because the loan gets funded.  Here is a recent example of the discussion of one idea that has people reconsidering if every loan should always be funded.

If you choose to fund every loan that comes across your screen, feel free....but know that the lender will mostly get the loan even if the loan does go "unfunded".



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[cpbailey]

I am shifting to the idea that perhaps having some loans go unfunded on Kiva would get the MFIs thinking about how better to meet Kiva lenders' expectations.  If you look at the oldest of the loans, there were almost two pages which were 70% of one MFI.  These loans were shared risk.  So on one day, a partner listed at least 28 loans--loans that 24 days later are still lingering.  It is just too many all at once at this point in time. 

New loans seem to go to the top of the popularity.  So the partners which list all at once, miss this opportunity for most of their loans by putting MOST of their month's supply at one time.  I know most of the people on KF don't stick to the front page, HOWEVER, many others must!  I know every time a record breaking or special loan (50,000th loan, 100,000th loan) comes up, it quickly hits the front page.  Then it is rapidly funded.

I suggest that we consider age, but only loan to things we would otherwise consider.  Otherwise, our only real power--voting with our pocketbook--is gone.

My criteria will continue to be diversification of countries, and partners.  I have a maximum monthly in shared currency risk, too.  I want a balance between long and shorter loans.  Within these parameters, I can make a monthly loan to a man with a cow. 



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[Jan & John]

I used to be concerned but have now come around to the same feelings as Colette. 

If a loan is lingering on the site, then there has to be a reason.  Probably combinations of size of group, poor photo, loan term, currency risk or just too many of the same type of loan.  And if the MFI or Kiva see all the loans funded, then there is no reason to worry or change anything on the site.  We now need to let our $$$ do the talking.

I still look at the 'soon to expire' loans but if there is none there that meet my criteria today, then I won't loan just to keep one or another from expiring.   My criteria still includes the 'person to person' feeling that I get when I look for a loan.

Ever since the 'disbursal' date has become 'in the past', I know it is only the MFI that is not getting the funding.  The borrower already has the money.

Just one 'for instance'...
Retoño Group ...chosen at random from the 'expiring soon' list. 
This was disbursed July 23 and only listed on Sept 1 on the Kiva site !!! 

jan



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[alan]

I agree. There is no reason to go beyond your personal criteria for lending.

But. It seems to me that with newer loans coming in at the top of the list it distorts the process. Consider the flurry of activity this morning when four loans from Nepal came in. I admit I was tempted myself. I have a few Nepal loans already, and would like to support more. But this morning I conserved my capital for older loans.

While any individual might look at any of the older loans and decide that it doesn't meet their personal criteria, it seems to me that the diversity of lenders is such that there is no reason for any loan to go unfunded as long as it get noticed. A few hundred loans came in today and got funded. They fit all kinds of criteria. Group loans; shared Currency Risk; men with cows; all funded. Why? Mostly because they got noticed. Some older ones also got funded, and it is notable how much progress was made while older loans were on page 1 of the Popularity sweepstakes. There was nothing preventing people from supporting these loans that had otherwise languished for upward of three weeks.

In my view, the issue is not that any given loan is fundamentally undesirable. I might not wish to support a given loan, but that doesn't mean that there aren't sufficient others willing to support it to get it funded. The issue is whether those who are willing to support a given loan will see it.



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[Jan & John]

I'm sorry Alan.

I really feel that it's like going shopping for shoes, feeling sorry for the store owner, and buying a pair of the ones on the back of the shelf that have been collecting dust.   It really should not need to be my concern if  the business either purchased too many or did not advertise well enough to sell them earlier.

I do agree that with loans it is a little different because we are dealing with peoples lives.  But Kiva will not make changes to the site to make loans more appealing as long as the lenders continue to provide funding.

jan - who is *really* sorry to have missed Nepal - I've been watching for ages

 


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[RichardF]

jan - who is *really* sorry to have missed Nepal - I've been watching for ages

It's too bad you weren't signed up for some auto lending!

Maybe your eMail got lost on the USPS truck! 






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[Dagfinn]

With 7 pages (PAGES) filled with red loans and another 2 on the eight page will Kiva finally climb down from their pidestal or wait for them to fall - I am worried the latter is the case.

So many people on here have painstakingly for now years tried to tell Kiva they need to be able to serve their lender base or today (and coming days) will proof the tree is about to reach is limits.

The good thing is that it may force Kiva to come to terms with the reality as we lenders experience.

The sad part is that it is the entrepenuers that have to pick up the tab for Kiva, whether the learn or not.

Let us hope Kiva will come back to its values that made it happen in the first place.

Excting times, Dagfinn A

[Peter S]

With nearly 1100 loans now available I get the feeling this might be the month when loans begin to go unfunded, and they might do so in rather large quantities.

Personally I'm in agreement with Jan on this one.  The borrowers involved have already had their loans, and loans expiring will send a message to both Kiva and the affected Kiva partners.  One problem might be whether Kiva will actually draw all the right lessons.  They might simply reiterate the usual line (voiced by Gerard recently in one of KF Liaison's reports) that the failure of loans to fund will serve as an encouragement to the field partners to improve the quality of the person-to-person connection they're offering, by means of better photos and narratives.  This was in the context of his saying that Kiva is not prepared to meddle with the default sort in order to save languishing loans.  That is part of it, there is plenty certain field partners could do to make their loans more engaging, but it's only part of it.  There are also possible reasons that involve Kiva's various innovations, like currency risk and lack of translations, and a cumulative negative impact on core lenders' propensity to lend.  Or it could be as simple as that there have been many more loans uploaded this month, and supply has finally exceeded demand.

Again personally, I've pretty much ground to a halt with funding new loans this month, and I don't know whether this is in any way typical of lenders like me.   From maybe 30 to 40 a month lately, just 6 in September, with a quite large withdrawal to PayPal after the 15th.  I don't have a particular problem with untranslated loans, but for me what even those 6 loans I've made had to overcome was a keen disappointment that the reasons for the continuing substantial delinquencies at BRAC Tanzania, Asasah, and MLF Microinvest had to be more or less dragged out of Kiva. It's absurd that for at least one of them, the first we knew was a quote from a reply from contactus.  It's been said so many times before, but Kiva should be much more proactive about realising that delinquencies attributable to the field partner need explanation in a timely manner.  To allow 50% delinquency rates to build up without explanation, and for all we know without Kiva itself noticing, is just profoundly unprofessional.  While I'm using that word, it's also quite unprofessional in my opinion for Kiva to have fixed the time of the next monthly conference call in such a way as to make it impossible for me and other Europeans to participate, without any explanation or apology.

Peter



by the way I amended the title of the first post in this thread - previously just "Worried?" - to make it more informative when seen in a list of topics.