Moneycontrol.com | developing countries | lending platform
Rang De: India’s First Microlending Site
Moneycontrol.com reports the launch of India’s first peer to peer microlending site, RangDe.org. The site explains the driver behind an online forum for microloans:
Rang De is a unique platform for individuals to become Social Investors and connect with borrowers of microcredit by lending small sums of money.
Unique features of Rang De are:
- Mission to drive down interest rates and make microcredit accessible to all. Rang De will always remain non profit to ensure this happens.
- The only online microlending platform that does not use a payment gateway and still makes payments possible. Register and see how we make this possible.
- 30 day loan disbursal guarantee.
You may wonder what the difference is between this model and a regular MFI. According to Rang De, they are able to offer rates “at least lower by 4%” than traditional MFIs. This allows them to potentially reach populations that could not afford microcredit before. The model is very similar to Kiva.org, which connects entrepreneurs in developing countries with the rest of the world, except Rang De focuses exclusively on India.
Interested in getting in on the action? It’s easy enough, according to the Moneycontrol.com article, when you invest Rs 1000:
A Rang De Social Investor will get back this money at the end of the loan tenure and earn a return of 3.5% pa in addition to the social return of having made a sustainable difference.
At the time this post was written, 123 social investors have used Rang De to disburse Rs 1789000 worth of loans to 281 borrowers.
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6 Comments on “Rang De: India’s First Microlending Site”
It would be interesting to see if they can make the numbers work. The platform will be successful only if they make it viable for the MFI partners (Range De does not do any lending, its the partners who do all the work)
Given Kiva’s problems with tapping the Indian market – Rangede might have an edge
Can you expand on Kiva’s main problems with the Indian market? What makes it different from other developing countries for a microlending platform?
There’s Dhanax too which has been around for quite some time. And the rate of interests are quite high so you end up earing more.
Obviously it depends on what you’re looking at.
From the investors point of view he is helping rural entrepreneurs either ways, so he’d obviously go for the company that gives him more rate on return.
I am a social investor on Rang De and I am not worried about the returns I get. I am happy that there is complete transparency of where the money is going. I do not want to earn more returns at the cost of a rural entrepreneur. If I want higher returns, I will invest in other financial instruments..
About the interest rates, I heard from the funders that the MFI as of now is not complaining. My opinion is What is the point in MFIs getting low cost capital and not transferring the benefit to the borrowers …there must be a key differentiator between borrowing from a bank and from social invetsors….
Vinay covered Dhanax back in February (http://thinkchangeindia.wordpress.com/2008/02/27/dhanax-cellence/) I wonder how they are doing almost a year on?
apply now and how to make it