Wokai Adventures

Frogs, Cellphones & The Cloud – The next wave of technology in microfinance

Casey Wilson

Today I spoke at U Penn’s annual microfinance panel, along with David del Ser, (founder of Frogtek) and Saket Sinha from IBM. Here, I want to share some things that I learned that day. For example, how Frogtek and IBM’s technologies have the potential to take microfinance to a whole new level.

Frogtek is creating a mobile application that will enable microvendors to track of all of their transactions on their own personal smart phone.

Photo credit: blog.frogtek.org

It works by letting microvendors enter all of their purchases, sales, receivables, and even microloans on their cellphone. They can then see a record of all of their expenses, as well as debts owed to them by customers. The application also produces financial reports, which is also recorded in the phone. Frogtek then uploads and stores all of the data onto its servers, which is open for review to major producers, like Pepsi and Proctor & Gamble. Needless to say, this market data is incredibly valuable on the producers’ end. On the microvendors’ end, Frogtek’s technology is important because it provides those who previously had no way of using smart technology to track their financial activities (e.g., tracking their cash flows and receivables, projecting inventory needs). Application of this technology also allows them to increase efficiency in two ways: 1) having access to business information and 2) managing their entire business from the convenience of their cell phone. To give you some perspective, imagine a restaurant that records all of their sales and expenses by pen or paper, or maybe just putting them in a big shoebox. The use of Frogtek technology by microvendors is like this restaurant upgrading to a combination of a computer cash register and Quickbooks. This way, our hypothetical restaurant (and our real-life microvendors) can track all of their business transactions and project what they’ll need to stock on for the next day.

All of this brings immense hope to the microfinance world, but my only question about Frogtek is whether its technology is a few years ahead of its time. Frogtek’s technology requires clients to have a smartphone and a dataplan. Well the issue is that though the majority of the world’s population has cellphones, only a small percent have smartphones. In China, for example, other than a few of my expat friends, I don’t know anyone who has a smartphone or data plan. Moreover, dataplans are costly, over $50/month, which is far out of the range of the average person in the countryside earning $1.5/day. On the brighter side, technology changes quickly, so it’s not to far-fetched to anticipate that in two years time, everyone will have internet access on their cellphones for a few dollars a month. Until then, however, the prospects for this type of technology to go mainstream seem bleak.

Let’s all turn to IBM now. IBM is in the process of revolutionizing MIS (management information system) technology. Instead of the current status quo where each microfinance institution (MFI) has its own MIS system hosted on its own server, IBM is moving microfinance to “The Cloud”, maintaining all of the MFI transaction data in a single massive database. In India, quite a number of MFIs have committed to using their system and, with MFIs sharing the costs of a single system rather than each maintaining their own MIS, IBM has been able to lower information system transaction costs to around $0.13 cents per loan. If this trend becomes the new norm, MFIs will no longer need their own IT team, MIS customization and maintenance team, not to mention increase efficiency. This could enable fourth tier MFIs that often don’t have MIS systems to have a new means to track transaction and control risk, giving them the foundation necessary to scale and attract investment.

Though the actual implementation of these technologies, let alone their feasibility, is yet to be seen, it is certainly welcoming news that microfinance, along with other industries, can reap the benefits of modern technology.

The Future of Wokai.org: Our Product Roadmap

Larry Sun

Larry is Wokai's Product and Technology Director.

To start this entry, I would like to thank you, the Wokai supporters, for making Wokai what it is today.

My name is Larry Sun. By day, I wear a Google t-shirt and lead a team of 4 engineers; by night, I put on my Wokai cape and work as Wokai's Product and Technology Director.  In other words, I work with entire Wokai team to focus our effort on the features that will streamline the loan process to further Wokai's mission. What does this mean for you? A scalable system that reduces the manual steps and cost of giving out loans and collecting repayments, which in turn, will spread the seed of Wokai in every corner of China.

As the individual who leads the product development and engineering practices, I would like to shed some light on our 2009 product plans and the engineering practices that will take us there.

Product Development:
As indicated by the "BETA" label that appears on our logo, the Wokai platform is a work in progress. At Wokai, we will never be satisfied with what we have accomplished.  We strive to provide more value to our borrowers and foster a welcoming community for everyone in the loan process, whether you are a borrower, contributor, or field partner. We have achieved a small portion of our vision in the first version of our platform. Our small team has worked diligently to deliver a complex system in a short amount of time. Looking ahead, I see that we will mainly focus on two aspects of the platform in 2009.

Loan Pipeline:
This functionality is Wokai's core competency; it is what Wokai is all about. The more effective and efficient we make our pipeline, the easier for our borrowers, contributors, field partners, and  supporters to see the fruits of your trust and the rewards of your selfless investment. Reflecting the importance of this aspect of the platform, we will spend most of our efforts in the first 2 quarters of 2009 building a robust pipeline.

User Interface Improvement:
You may be concerned that we will overlook our user interface and not adequately address some of the concerns you have about our appearance. As Casey has mentioned before, we have not ignored the large amount of feedback we've received in the last 2 months. I have personally looked into every piece of feedback with the development team, and prioritized the changes that you would like to see. However, we will shift our focus to the Loan Pipeline in the early part of 2009. What this means is that we will look at the most critical feedback of the user interface and selectively improve our appearance.

You may wonder why we have decided to do so. Let me take a minute to explain. The majority of us are fans of Apple products and Google search. Two reasons that these two companies have succeeded in obtaining our liking, I believe, are the focus of the product development and the user-driven development approaches. These two qualities guide what we will do at Wokai as well our efforts to take our platform to the next level. Being able to make loans and collect repayments are the most important functionalities of Wokai platform,; we will relentlessly invest in this area just as Apple did in building simplistic but highly intuitive products, and Google did in Search. In addition, we will invest in features that will enable a dialogue instead of monologue.  You have heard from us through multiple channels; it is time to let you be part of Wokai and own the future of Wokai. We believe that the success we can achieve in China's micro-finance field takes more than one player. We need your support and kind donations to build an ecosystem that will change China.

Engineering Practices
Basically I can summarize our engineering practices into three words "number, number, and number". What does it mean? We prioritize our engineering efforts based on the analysis of user traffic, such as what you clicked, what you did not click, etc. Although these don't seem very important individually, by tallying all of the explicit and implicit feedback, we will be able to enhance our system with efficiency and answer your most pressing needs.

Although we are a start-up, we make security, performance, and site usability our top priorities. Making improvement in these three areas, we can enhance Wokai platform to scale to support more borrowers, gain the trust of additional donors, and make your experience more enjoyable.

Security & Privacy
You trust us to manage your money and information; in turn, it is our responsibility to make our platform secure and your information private. That's why you see us managing the transaction with Google Checkout and asking you for your preference for sharing or hiding your profile. In addition, we will frequently conduct security audits of our system to make sure that new improvements will not result in security vulnerabilities or leaks of your private information.

Performance
You might have experienced some frustration of waiting for pages to finish loading. So did I! For example, we will enhance our synchronous rendering of Google Maps to non-blocking rendering with XmlHttpRequest. By saving fraction of a second here and there, we will make our platform more responsive and make your browsing experience significantly better.

Usability
We started enhancing the navigation, coloring scheme and updating our contents as soon as we launched in early November. We consider the work important if we can reduce your navigation to the information you care the most from two clicks to one. In order to determine what to do, we have been examining the user traffic to see what section you spent the most time in, links you clicked the most, etc. If you sit right next to me when I am looking at the reports at night, you will often hear my "wows" and "ohs." What you're telling me contradicts my initial assumptions. You have been teaching us how to do our jobs better every step of the way.

I hope that you have enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing and sharing with you. At the end of this post, I would like to thank our development team who built this amazing platform. In addition, I would like to thank you, the entire Wokai team, and our partners. The current website you see is the result of the collaboration among you, Wokai founders, chapter volunteers, full-time staff, college interns, and our partners in so many areas.

Please come back to us frequently, we will illustrate our progress and show you our platform is reaching more poor in China. Lastly, please visit http://www.wokai.org and make a difference in a borrower's life.

Leslie Visits New York Chapter and DonorsChoose.org

Leslie Forman

Leslie will soon join Wokai's core team in Beijing as Marketing Director. 

For the past few days, I have been in New York, learning as much as I can about how Wokai functions here, as research for the detailed marketing plan that I am preparing.  I have really enjoyed meeting the New York team.  Thank you Meghan for sharing your experiences with the chapter's overall development, and Sandy for stepping up as the chapter's new president, and Anthony for insights into Wokai's local strategy, and Ji for your ideas about how overseas Chinese connect with their families back home. 

My main impression is that Wokai's major organizational challenge is figuring out how to involve incredibly busy professionals.  The expertise and contacts and enthusiasm that these financiers bring to the table is what makes Wokai so much stronger.  However, anyone that's still at the office at 11pm on a regular basis doesn't have much time to volunteer.  What we need is a strong, centralized marketing plan, with very specific assignments that can be managed over Google Docs.  For example, each person on the New York marketing team could be assigned to contact one blogger per week, with a specific video and message, from a list of ten bloggers that focus on, say, nonprofit marketing techniques. 

Today I learned so much more from Cesar Bocanegra, Executive Vice President for Operations at DonorsChoose.org.  This online marketplace allows public school teachers to post classroom needs for donors to fund.  I'd like to share four of my favorite parts of their system.  Click on any graphic to see that portion of their site: 

1. Graphics. This is for donors:

 

And this is for teachers:

Lesson for Wokai: We need some great visuals.  Any artists reading want to try their hand at a picture like this?  Feel free to send it to me at leslie.forman <at> wokai.org! 

2. Mustaches for Kids.  Guys grow mustaches, create their own fundraising pages, and get their friends to donate in their honor.  They have a competition for the sweetest mustache at the end.  This is particularly awesome because it's fun and targets young men: a demographic that's not usually known for its fundraising.

 

Lesson for Wokai: We need to make fundraising FUN!

3. Double Your Impact.  On certain projects, this logo indicates that a foundation or company has offered to match all individual gifts.  These institutions can specifically match projects that fit with their missions

 

Lesson for Wokai: Matching gifts, aligned with the type of project, could be very effective motivating factors for donors! 

4. Operations and Organization.  Cesar showed me the system through which they make sure they properly send out all requested supplies, and thank all of their donors with packets containing pictures and letters from the teacher and students.  He let me put together one package that they send to the teachers.  Following the detailed diagrams on the wall, I used the disposable camera to take two pictures of the label describing the project Books for Boys.  I then placed the labels and postage in the designated positions, and stuffed one envelope inside the other, and placed it in the designated box, for shipment to the teacher.  This is a job that can be done by any staff member or volunteer.  An assembly line! 

Lesson for Wokai: With our widespread chapter network, detailed processes really can be helpful for maximum effectiveness and efficiency. 

There are so many more ideas I could write here.  Thank you so much Cesar for taking time out of your busy day to meet with me! 

Online Giving Marketplaces Conference at Stanford

Leslie Forman

Leslie is Wokai's Online Social Media Director.  She lives in San Francisco. 

This week Casey and I had the great fortune to spend four days at Stanford, learning about online giving marketplaces.  This has been such an amazing opportunity to learn from other organizations, in a very personal way. 

For the first three days, we met with the leaders of 16 different marketplaces from India, Colombia, South Africa, Argentina, Germany, Canada, and the U.S.  As the youngest organization (and youngest participants) in the group, we felt especially honored to be included.   A huge thank you to the Omidyar Network for making this possible!

The organizers brought in professional illustrator named Susan Kelly to transform these discussions into clear and colorful pictures.  Here is her record of our presentation on Wokai's chapter network, part of a session in which each marketplace shared a best practice.

Over the next few weeks, we'll post more here to share what we learned about diaspora, trust, technology, communities, and so much more. 

The final day the Stanford Social Innovation Review hosted a larger public conference  on the same topic. 

I had never heard the term Online Giving Marketplaces before this week.  It's a term that can be defined in many ways, and I really like this list of common characteristics by Lucy Bernholz, who hosted one of the sessions and is writing a book on the topic:

1:1 transactions between donor/lender and NGO/entrepreneur
Transparency
Feedback loops
Donor choice
Aggregating individual transactions (sometimes for intelligence)
Two flows in the markets - financial resources and information
Financial transactions are based on trusted information

In other words, online giving marketplaces transform philanthropy, making it more accessible and more like online shopping. 

And I sure hope that Dean Takahashi from VentureBeat is right when he says that "Social start-ups may prosper in downturn." 

New Blog Features and Video Inspiration

Leslie Forman

Leslie is leading Wokai's online social media outreach.  She lives in San Francisco. 

I've been working on making this blog more accesible and interactive.  So far I've added an RSS feed, a Jiglu tag cloud, ShareThis buttons, a favorite posts section, and re-organized links.  I'd like to thank Brian Singh and Jordan Halpern-Leistner from Penn for their in-depth blog viral marketing strategy and family friend Elise Bauer for her helpful presentation on building blog traffic. 

What do you think of these new features?  Are they helpful?  Too busy for your taste?  We really appreciate your feedback. 

I'm also in the process of creating a video explain Wokai's vision, as Courtney described here.  The Girl Effect is still my favorite video online, but I've recently come across two more that have inspired my creative process. 

350.org is an online global initiative to fight global warming.  (The name 350.org stands for 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide, the maximum concentration for a healthy and thriving planet.)  I met its co-coordinator Jamie Henn at a recent event.  Check out this video:

I really like how this video explains a complex concept in simple, concrete terms, that people all over the world can understand.  I love the combination of urgency and simplicity.  I think that cartoons are an especially effective medium for explaining global warming, but I'm not sure if they'd be as effective for China microfinance.  Perhaps for a later video...

Today I also discovered this video, from The Green Children Foundation, which provides a simple and personal introduction to microfinance in China. 

I like the simple, human aspects of this video, though it leaves me wondering about the specifics of the program.  Where in China is this?  How did the man learn to build irrigation systems?  Who is the blonde girl and what is her role in the projects?  (With a bit of research I learned that The Green Children is a band from Norway and she is a singer, but still, it leaves me wanting to find out more about how these projects work...) 

I see some common themes in all three of these videos: strong music, accessible stories, short videos, a clear connection between the viewer and the video's subject. 

We are looking for a musician for our video, which will to explain Wokai's vision to people who are not yet familiar with microfinance and/or China. I am envisioning a one-instrument piece.  It does not need to be an original, but I think it should be recorded or mixed with the video in mind for maximum impact.  I think that a guitar, violin, harp, or piano could work well... though I am no musician!  Do you know a talented musician who might be interested? 

Asia Microfinance Finance Forum - Day 2: P2P Lending Platform Panel

Casey

Today I gave my Why China needs person to person + speech on the P2P lending platform panel at the AMF. The panel started with Darren Miao talking about Kiva, their model, and innovation plan for the future, which includes starting Kiva in the classroom, the functionality to allow groups to lend on Kiva, and starting a Kiva chapter network at elite colleges around the US. Kiva is now at the point where they are absorbing $1 million in contributions every 12 days. That's so impressive!

I followed Darren and spoke about Wokai's person to person plus model of an online and offline approach to person to person lending. The online being a three-part website, like Kiva + Facebook + Wikipedia. And, the offline component being working on the ground with our Field Partners doing extensive on-site evaluations and monitoring as well as technical assistance training in areas like finance and accounting.

Finally, Professor Arvind Ashta, who is co-authoring a book on peer to peer lending models spoke about his research into the main models out there, their stregnths and weaknesses, and the key determinants that he and his co-author found to be key to succesful platforms. It turns out, that a successful p2p platform should have social networking, blog, and wiki components, along with lending. While none of the p2p platforms that Professor Ashta studied in the project had all of these components, the Wokai future platform contained them all. Professor Ashta and Jack Sim, the founder of the Water Toilet Organization that was in the crowd, were certain that Wokai on the right track, but the rest of the audience seemed pretty enthralled with Kiva and directed their questions at Darren. So, who's right, the self proclaimed Toilet King or the organization with over hundred thousand + lenders? We'll see...

On a side note, you should check out the Water Toilet Organization. Jack Sim is quite an innovative and enthusiastic entrepreneur. The WTO promotes an often ignored but incredibly important cause of proper sanitation and waste disposal in impoverished populations. Jack pointed out that more people die per year of Diarehea and worms due to improper sanitation than HIV. Check out some entertaining Q&A with Jack and the Asian Development Bank:




Water Champion: Jack Sim
Flushing Down the Toilet Taboo
August 2007

By Ma. Christina Dueñas
Water Knowledge and Communications Coordinator, ADB

"How do you handle the jokes or embarrassment that accompany talks of toilets?

It is normal for people to laugh when we talk about toilets. When I was starting the WTO, I met Thailand’s Mr. Condom, Senator Mechai Viravaidya. His advice to me was “Laugh at yourself. Don’t take yourself so seriously. When they laugh with you, they’ll listen to you.” I love it when I introduce myself as the Toiletman.

What are the WTO’s objectives and thrusts?

Our objective is that every person must enjoy safe and sustainable sanitation.

Our programs cover advocacy, capacity building, and development projects. For advocacy, we organize major events such as the World Toilet Summits or World Sanitation Fund Forum. We also celebrate World Toilet Day every November 19.

In 2005, we launched the World Toilet College in Singapore. It offers courses that professionalize toilet cleaners, teach architects and managers to design ergonomic layouts, and train rural poor communities on bio-gas designs, urine-diversion, and other ecosan methods. We’re getting ready to open another toilet college in Indonesia.

We also have development projects involving toilet construction for tsunami victims in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, rural schools in China, and more.

How would you describe your crusade for better toilets?

I worked as a merchant and manufacturer for decades but realized that no matter how much money I make, I won’t have any use for it when I die. I estimate to live for 80 years. So at age 40, I shifted to social work and focused on toilets. My dream is that every human being will have a safe and enjoyable toilet to use everywhere they go. This may not be possible in my lifetime but I must say that after 10 years of volunteering and social work, I see no better use of my remaining 30 years than pursuing this dream."

http://www.adb.org/Water/champions/sim.asp

Does Wokai need Chapters?

Courtney

Does an online organization need on the ground presence to be sustainable?

According to Matt from Kiva, it does not. A website should be able to last online without PR, marketing, or an on-the-ground presence. It should be so appealing, so dynamic, and so addicting that users will naturally want to go back, get involved, and refer friend --- without having to see a billboard like the one below to remind them. 

So how does one create a website that can exist, grow, and floursh on the web without the help of marketing and completely reliant on the web's own networks and communities?

Lets take a look at the sites that are pillars of the online community to kick off the discussion.

Consider Google, Skype, Youtube, Ebay, and Facebook? What do those sites provide? Why are they pillars? Why are they so appealing?

They all relate to human nature. According to philosopher Hobbes, all of man's voluntary acts are for his own self presevation. In caveman times that self preservation translated into shelter and food. In America today, that self preservation takes on a different form. Self preservation translates into saving time and saving money. More time and more money allows more choices and more freedoms. Think about the extreme of this exemplified in Hollywood stars like Oprah and Angelina & tech entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Pierre Omidyar. All of these people have time to do what they want and the economic backing to make it happen. Pierre can start his own foundation - Omidyar Network to fund cool social ventures and Angelina can make action movies while serving as ambassador for the UN.

Revisiting our pillars. Google essentially is a time-saver. It helps you find what you need in the least amount of time. Youtube and Facebook are as well. Youtube allows you to watch, send and post video more efficiently then ever before. Facebook allows you to network in a way that no black book could ever beat. Ebay and Skype? They are money savers. On Ebay, you can buy a Ipod Nano for half the price you would pay at an Apple store. And on Skype, you call China for a dime when it costs more $1.20 per minute by cell. 

But even appealing to these basic needs, these organizations still need on-the-ground operations with marketing and business development teams. Google - the mega monkey of them all - has well over 60 offices in 20 countries worldwide (according to their most recent public filing.)

So how can Kiva exist on internet land with only internet marketing and networking?

I don't think it can. And neither can Wokai.

Wokai is a website dedicated to alleviating poverty in China. With its China focus, it  appeals to specific group of people - individuals that have a connection to China (whether that be ethnically, socially, or culturally). These people are spread out across various groups, but they are unique and niche. Without Chapters, we would have no way of reaching them and letting them know about Wokai.

Or would we? According to Matt, maybe we are underestimating the power of the internet? Maybe the internet could bring us all the users we need. He believes a website should rely on the developing land (the web) just as much as it does (if not more so) the developed land ( brick-and-mortar). 

As much as I love the idea, my gut tells me the special sauce for Wokai is a combination of the two - working both web world and brick-and-mortar world to spread the Wokai message. But hats off to Matt if he can figure out a web-only special sauce for Kiva. Thats a huge undertaking that even Google has yet to conquer!

Shout Out to Matt

Casey

Courtney and I just came back from dinner with Matt Flannery, Co-founder and CEO of Kiva. This was a big day for us because, on top of having a fascinating conversation and learning a lot from Matt's wealth of insights and experience in innovating the online P2P microfinance model, we found out that Matt reads our blog! After 15 months of work we hit the micro-big time! Since we started, we've alway been in awe of Matt and Kiva. The fact that Matt created this model coding at night in a local doughnut shop and has since turned it into a platform that raises over $3 million in loan capital a month is incredible. To learn more, check out Matt's Blog, Kiva Chronicles.

Go Wokai!

Qifang's Calvin Chin

Casey

I had lunch today with Calvin Chin, Founder and CEO of Qifang. Qifang is a China-based P2P lending platform that provides a vehicle for students in China to access long-term, low-interest loans. Loans will range from five to ten years with annual interest rates of around 8 to 10 percent.

In China, where access to credit is so limited, this is a revolutionary idea with amazing potential. Xinhua news estimates that in 2007 alone, China has 25 million new college freshman. Your average college student here doesn't have access to the type of college loans that so many students in the US depend upon to pay their college tuitions. An average year's tuition and expenses add up to around $1,500. When you think that 300 million people are living on less than a dollar a day, a vast number of China's young population has no hope of ever affording college. Qifang provides a great model for addressing this problem. According to Calvin that "Qifang aims to target the population of highschool students for whom it wouldn't even occur that attending college could be a option."

Another unique aspect of Qifang is the loan term. The college loans currently available in China generally have a four-year loan term. That means that immediately after students finish college, they have no saved up income to make the lump sum repayment. China had a recent crisis where students who had taken out college loans defaulted on their loans when it was time to repay. Since the idea of credit history and the plague of bad credit still doesn't exist here, lenders had no leverage to use in tracking down delinquent borrowers. One reason for these high default rates may have been that loan products were designed in a way where students felt like they were had no realistic means of making their final payments. The crisis caused many here to doubt whether college students are a viable credit market. By creating 5-10 year loan terms, students have the time to work up the income necessary to repay their loans. This is not only a much better model from a business perspective, but also takes a weight off of the shoulders of the students taking out these loans. If Qifang takes off, it has the potential to change a lot of people's minds about the viability of college credit.

A new and improved Kiva?

Courtney

Last week I had drinks with Bhalchander Vishwanath of United Prosperity, a start-up non-profit focused on using technology to assist the growth of microfinance in the developing world. United Prosperity fits into the same mold as Kiva as a fundraising intermediary in the global microfinance sector.

The business model is unique. United Prosperity aims at raising funds to serve as a guarantee capital for microfinance institutions to obtain loans from banks. The process would work as follows:

1. Bank approves the microfinance institution for a $100,000 loan
2. United Prosperity raises half that amount of capital ($50,000) to guarantee the loan
3. Bank releases capital to the microfinance institution
4. Microfinance institution repays the bank $100,000 at the end of the loan period
5. United Prosperity returns raised guarantee capital to contributors

United Prosperity has unique capabilities:

• Impact. Every $1 dollar a contributor gives generates $2 dollars of impact, since United Prosperity only has to give loan guarantees for half the size of the loan.
• Returns. United Prosperity has the ability to utilize the guarantee capital for the lifetime of the loan. They can therefore use this large sum of capital to invest in other capital markets investments in order to obtain a return on capital to either 1.) generate income 2.) pay off overhead costs 3.) generate a return to investors 4.) re-invest the capital in infrastructure projects for the microfinance institution
• Costs. United Prosperity is not involved in a costly labor-intensive due diligence process to ensure that microfinance institutions are a good investment and a true reflection of their financial statements. The bank is responsible for this step as they are the one extending the loan. (This is quite different from Wokai that must be very hands-on with its partners as it is our organization that is liable if funds are misappropriated.)

United Prosperity needs to be aware of the following:

• P2P Model. People like to connect to people, not institutions. United Prosperity needs to ensure that it is able to weave a way to connect contributors with the end borrower obtaining their $1
• Marketing. Kiva has a first in on the space. That is both a good and a bad thing for United Prosperity. Good, Kiva made the US market familiar with microfinance and using technology to make contribution to microfinance borrowers. Also, Good for United Prosperity is that Kiva has been around now for over 2 years and users are prepared to try something new. Bad, Kiva has had huge media blitz and has really is a market leader. Kiva has established much credibility and also a connection with contributors that have watched the organization grow over time. United Prosperity needs a strong marketing strategy that will differentiate it from Kiva.
• Simplicity. United Prosperity has a much more complicated model. As we learned from Microplace, users do not like complication. Keep it simple, like Kiva did. Kiva left the grassroots field partner (a vital component in the process) completely out of its business model. United Prosperity needs to use this same business savvy to make the business model easily understandable.

United Prosperity could do a lot for the 2nd tier and 3rd tied microfinance institutions that are not taking part in global capital markets for fundraising. It offers an accessible local market alternative through banks. Unfortunately, the majority of China microfinance is not up to speed yet and will most likely be a late addition to the United Prosperity network. I am sure it will grow in Latin America and India first. It will be an exciting project to watch.