Yes, thanks for bringing that up. In the US we have large commercial P2P lending services like Lending Club and Prosper.
Then there is Kiva Zip, which also does P2P loans in the US but at zero interest and an emphasis on human connection and social impact.
Kiva Zip was originally inspired / advised by Zidisha (see https://zip.kiva.org/blogs/4). Our models have some major differences though:
- Kiva Zip offers loans in the US and Kenya. Zidisha offers loans in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Kenya, Niger, Senegal and Zambia, and we have no plans to enter the US market.
- Kiva Zip is interest-free. Zidisha allows borrowers to offer interest rates of their own choosing which are then bid upon by lenders.
- Kiva Zip has an office with staff in each borrower country, and works with local partners called trustees. Zidisha has no local staff at all, and no local intermediaries - we deliver everything online.
- Kiva Zip is well resourced. Zidisha is lean to an extreme, so that the cost of making the loans is just about 5%.
- Zidisha is managed by a global network of about 60 volunteers. We are a virtual organization with no physical office.
- Perhaps most importantly, Kiva Zip retains Kiva's historic expertise in liaising with local entities (hence the trustee-based organization of the loans). Zidisha's core expertise is in person-to-person communication, and we are really passionate about keeping that direct P2P connection untainted. We interfere as little as possible in the transactions between borrowers and lenders, while providing the marketplace infrastructure that makes direct P2P lending across the international wealth divide possible.