Changes at Kiva.Org: Instant Loan Repayment

I received an email from Kiva.org the other day announcing a significant change to the lending process that has existed since the organization first went live on the internet. Until now, when you made a loan to an entrepreneur, you could not get your funds back until the loan was paid in full. If you lent someone $25, and they were paying you back in $5 installments, you would have the full $25 available again after five months. Now you have the $5 available to you every time the borrower makes a payment, enabling you to loan the money out to other entrepreneurs sooner.

I already had two $25 loans redeemed and waiting in my portfolio to be lent out again (I've been making one $25 loan each month and recycling repaid funds), but following this change, the sum total of amounts repaid from my other active loans also became available, bringing my available funds to lend up to $103.06. This change will completely change how I make loans - instead of waiting for a new month to make a single $25 loan, I'm now going to lend the money out as soon as I have $25 available, whenever that occurs. So now I'm on the hunt for four entrepreneurs to lend to...

The result of the change? As of right now, I can't find any Mexican entrepreneurs to lend to, my preferred group of entrepreneurs. I tried looking for borrowers in the Middle East to lend to, and I found none. Then I tried looking into Eastern Europe - still no one available! Whenever Kiva makes a change or receives big media attention, this happens - new lenders come flooding in and new loan applications are funded almost as soon as they're posted for about a week or two (a good problem to have!)

I've been lending to Mexican entrepreneurs exclusively because I see this as one means of addressing the poor security of our common border: create opportunity in Mexico, and less people will seek to cross our border illegally looking for work; less interest in crossing may mean less opposition to securing the border. I have similar U.S. security goals in mind in my interest in Middle Eastern and Eastern European borrowers. If entrepreneurs flourish in Muslim lands, perhaps they will resist the radicals who threaten peace and prosperity more. In Eastern Europe, it seems that the Russian bear is trying to stage a comeback, and since Western Europe remains largely spineless in the face of an increasingly aggressive Russia, the Eastern European nations are going to need fortification.

Now that I will have funds constantly returning to me and available to be lent right back out again, I think I'm going to lend to people in all of these regions at once. I'll be able to shift my capital between these regions much more rapidly than I was able to before, and now I think I'll be able to do even more with the measly $200 I have on deposit within the Kiva system.