11 Facts About Zidisha

Zidisha allows people to lend small amounts of money directly to entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Kurnia founded Zidisha to connect lenders and borrowers directly, thereby reducing borrower costs.

Zidisha relaunched in January 2014 as one of the first seven non-profits funded by seed accelerator Y Combinator.

Zidisha used to contract with local partners to perform telephone-based verifications of each new borrower, but around 2012 the organization discontinued this practice due to fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.

Zidisha borrowers are allowed to adjust their weekly installment amount upward or downward an unlimited number of times, as long as a single payment has been made since the last adjustment.

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Zidisha has had much success with this operations model as many interns and volunteers have proven to reliably carry out Zidisha's day-to-day activities.

Zidisha has not registered with the SEC, and has publicly stated that they are not a securities broker.

Zidisha subsequently made its write-off policy stricter, classifying a loan as written off if it is not repaid six months after its due date, or if the borrower has not made any payments for six months.

Zidisha defines its repayment and writeoff statistics more conservatively than other microlending websites.

Zidisha has been a finalist and semifinalist for the Echoing Green foundation for early-stage social enterprises, and was an Ashoka Fellow nominee.

In 2014 Zidisha became one of the first seven nonprofits to graduate from seed accelerator Y Combinator.