eBay Inc. is an American multinational e-commerce corporation based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, and became a notable success story of the dot-com bubble. eBay is a multibillion-dollar business with operations in about 32 countries, as of 2019. The company manages the eBay website, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a wide variety of goods and services worldwide. The website is free to use for buyers, but sellers are charged fees for listing items after a limited number of free listings, and again when those items are sold.
Working Capital for Community Needs (WCCN) is a 501(c)3 charitable nonprofit organization with headquarters in Madison, WI, whose mission is to create opportunities for access to microfinance, services and markets to improve the lives and communities of the working poor in Latin America. WCCN works with partner Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and Fair Trade Cooperatives in Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.
Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.
Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient.
Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.
Pierre Morad Omidyar is a French-American billionaire technology entrepreneur, software engineer, and philanthropist. He is the founder of eBay where he served as chairman from 1998 to 2015. Omidyar and his wife Pamela are philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004.
Accion is an international nonprofit. Founded as a community development initiative serving the poor in Venezuela, Accion is known as a pioneer in the fields of microfinance and fintech impact investing.
Vikram Akula is an American banker and the founder of SKS Microfinance, a micro finance company and former chairperson of Bharat Financial Inclusion Ltd. SKS was an organization that offered microloans and insurance to poor women in India. He stepped down as SKS Chairperson in November 2011 and became Chairperson Emeritus.
Kiva is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California that allows people to lend money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in 77 countries. Kiva's mission is "to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive."
Tracey Pettengill Turner, a serial social entrepreneur, is the founder of Copia Global, an ecommerce service for middle-low income Africans based in Nairobi, Kenya. She founded the company in 2012 and serves as the Executive Chairman. The mission of Copia is to be the trusted partner of middle-low income Africans, improving their lives through the power of ecommerce.
Bharat Financial Inclusion LimitedBFIL is a banking & finance company (NBFC), licensed by the Reserve Bank of India. It was founded in 1997 by Vikram Akula, who served as its executive chair until November 2011. The company's mission is to provide financial services to the poor under the premise that providing financial services to poor borrowers helps to alleviate poverty. In 2013, the company operated across 17 Indian states.
Chris Dixon is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and previously worked at eBay. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Hunch, a website.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". Impact investments provide capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
Compartamos Banco is a Mexican bank and the largest microfinance bank in Latin America, serving more than 2.5 million clients. The bank was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Mexico City.
Banking or banking activity that complies with sharia —known as Islamic banking and finance, or shariah-compliant finance—has its own products, services and contracts that differ from conventional banking. Some of these include Mudharabah, Wadiah (safekeeping), Musharakah, Murabahah, Ijar (leasing), Hawala, Takaful, and Sukuk.
The SIDBI foundation for Microcredit (SFMC)
Hattha Kaksekar Limited or HKL is a microfinance institution and a deposit-taking institution in Cambodia. In terms of loan portfolio, HKL is ranked fourth and it has the third largest saving portfolio among Cambodia MFIs.
The impact of microcredit is a subject of much controversy. Proponents state that it reduces poverty through higher employment and higher incomes. This is expected to lead to improved nutrition and improved education of the borrowers' children. Some argue that microcredit empowers women. In the US and Canada, it is argued that microcredit helps recipients to graduate from welfare programs. Critics say that microcredit has not increased incomes, but has driven poor households into a debt trap, in some cases even leading to suicide. They add that the money from loans is often used for durable consumer goods or consumption instead of being used for productive investments, that it fails to empower women, and that it has not improved health or education.
Gray Matters Capital is an impact investing foundation founded by Bob Pattillo. Its mission is to achieve "An education leading to a purpose filled life for 100, Million Women by 2036." GMC is based in Atlanta, Georgia with global offices in Nairobi, Kenya and Bangalore, India. The scale and the use of business practices with social enterprises makes it one of the leaders in impact investing.
Village Financial Services Ltd (VFS), headquartered in Kolkata, was incorporated on 28 June 1994, as a private limited company over a decade before it got its present name.
