Wokai: Start it Up
November 7th, 2008I mentioned Wokai briefly in the previous post but after closer examination they deserve the full monty. Developed by 2 smart ladies (Courtney McColgan and Casey Wilson) from the US who met studying advanced Chinese at Tsinghua University.
Wokai means “I start” in Chinese and represents the entreprenuerial spirit of microfinance. It looks an amazing undertaking. With over a sixth of the world’s population the potential for domestic economic activity is enormous.
With 300,000,000 living below the poverty line and the Rural Credit Bank only servicing 25% of demand, there is clearly a large market here for small, flexible lending which is the hallmark of microfinance.
It’s another exciting addition to the microfinance and P2P stable of companies. As long term readers will know I believe strongly that P2P financing will replace traditonal banking systems within 20 years.
Who knows it may be sooner with organisations like Wokai springing forth.
Tags: banking, china, empowerment, lending, microfinance, money, p2p, poverty, wokai
November 20th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
FYI – wokai has formally launched. You can now see it live in action.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:24 am
[...] into China. So you will notice Kiva does not offer loans there as yet. However, Wokai, which I featured a while ago, has started up and is making great progress in delivering finance to those who are [...]