Originally Posted by
ddutil
I don't want to rain on everybody's feel good parade here, but I made 32 loans and have a 7.93% default rate. Everything I read about Kiva is how wonderful it is and how you never lose money. You can lose money. If you want to give to charity don't let me stand in your way, but if you want to get miles with a small risk of loss, this is not the place to do it.
The overall default rate is 1.1% on Kiva and falling. That is to say 98.9% of all funds get repaid fully.
Some borrowers may be late in paying their installments as
HansGolden has pointed out but ultimately, they catch up and pay back. I currently have 8 loans of 270 paying back that are delinquent, but usually by the end of the month, almost all my loans have caught up. It is important that although the bulk of repayments occurs on the 15th, the actual pay date is the following first of the month.
and while miles are important to the community, one should also consider the lasting effects your loans has to the borrower giving them a chance to lift themselves into self-sustainability.