indosole

Kiva Zip | Indosole, LLC

Just loaned $ to a young social-enterprise through Kiva Zip:

Indosole is a young company based out of California, USA with manufacturing and office in Bali, Indonesia -  on a mission to save 1 million tires from landfills and give them new life as footwear. Today, Indosole has saved 8000+ tires from landfill, and sold approx. 16,000 pair of shoes/sandals.

Founders Kyle and Faye are proud of what they have created, also proud of saving 8000+ tires and giving jobs to 40+ Balinese artisans.

Kiva Zip is a pilot program launched by Kiva, the world’s first and largest micro-lending website. Kiva became famous for enabling anyone with an internet connection to lend as little as $5 to alleviate poverty.

Kiva Zip takes this model even further by making it possible for lenders to send funds directly to the entrepreneurs they support. We have three major goals here:

Help entrepreneurs access the financial services they need. While microfinance has helped millions, many people have been left out: Think remote rural villages in Kenya or recent refugees with no credit history in the United States. By making lending easy on the internet, and tying loans to borrowers’ characters rather than their credit scores, Kiva Zip aims to reach the world’s most marginalized entrepreneurs with the financial tools they need to succeed.

Lower fees and interest rates to make borrowing affordable. Because Kiva Zip operates online and uses mobile payment technologies to move money, it’s able to slash the cost of making microfinance loans. These savings are passed along to borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. In fact, Kiva Zip loans are currently offered at 0% interest with no fees.

Feet dangling, mind wandering