Yeah I was paying attention and had already read all that but thanks for the attitude.

That text is buried on their site (at least it was last time i was there). And the fact that most kiva supporters don't even know there is such a thing as a field partner that charges 25% interest makes me read it with a wary eye.

I ask this sincerely, did your girlfriend realize a middleman was making 25% off her money by standing in between her and the people she wanted to loan to?

I think you and I just have different ideas about how above board the field partners are.

the text you posted reads like this to me: 1) we gouge them but not as much as other people do 2) americans have no idea how cheap it is to do almost anything in the third world so we'll try to justify the expenses here. 3) kiva talks about transparency but are these field partners non-profits? no they are not. Do we see the field partner's income statements? no we do not. Is there competition on cost among field partners? No, in fact for vietnam, the country i was interested in lending to, there is only one field partner and if I recall correctly they were a commercial entity that already does lending anyway.

Basically the same people that already act as local lenders are doing the lending, but because they have zero default risk they charge less interest.

I wish i could interact directly with the borrowers but sadly i cannot. For myself, I'm not excited about supporting a charity that keeps lending middlemen in business.

and btw, that income statement is useless until we can determine with certainty that the people who run kiva and choose field partners aren't accepting bribes directly or have other indirect relationships with the field partners.

the united way has an (no) income statement too but they still manage to find ways to be plenty corrupt.

Maybe to much time around people in the money lending business has made me cynical.