Yes, this is true direct lending. In fact it's more direct than Kiva Zip, because the latter uses local organizations called "trustees" to help vet borrowers, and the trustees frequently post content in place of the borrower, especially outside the US. Zidisha does not use trustees or any other intermediary, and the content in the loan profile pages is written directly by the borrowers. You can view a sampling of the sort of comments our borrowers post here: https://www.zidisha.org/microfinance/testimonials.html.
Our best recourse against default is prevention, as it is very hard to collect a loan once it has become delinquent. Most of our credit risk protection happens at the application stage: things like a referral program that incentivizes borrowers to invite only trustworthy acquaintances to join Zidisha, machine learning tools to detect fraudulent accounts, and a credit limit progression system that incentivizes members to maintain high on-time repayment rates.
We spend a lot of time on fraud protection, but the most frequent cause of default at Zidisha is simple financial hardship. We're lending to a demographic whose income is not only low but also erratic, and lacks substantial savings, insurance or government safety nets. A big part of our credit risk protection is recognizing that reality and accommodating it through mechanisms like allowing borrowers to choose their own repayment schedules and adjust their installment amounts up or down to adapt to their financial situation.