MicroPlace: A New Place to Microfinance

With as little as $20 in your Paypal account or banking account you can enter the world of micro financing. Your twenty dollars could help people living in poverty in the United States, North, Central, and South America, the poor in Asia, Europe and Africa depending where you choose to invest. MicroPlace is similar to Kiva. Kiva is probably the microfinance leader. However, MicroPlace owned by Ebay joined the scene in 2006. However, unlike Kiva, MicroPlace offers investors a chance to earn interest in addition to the satisfaction of their investment helping some one in need. MicroPlace also allows investors to help people in the United States as well.

MicroPlace has a simple mission statement. Their "mission is to help alleviate global poverty by enabling everyday people to make investments in the world's working poor." The mission is ambitious and obviously will help those who need help. However, I think MicroPlace hurts Kiva. It hurts Kiva as the organization may lose investors who may stumble onto MicroPlace while using Paypal and make a switch. Since, MicroPlace offers interest investors may switch from Kiva for the return. MicroPlace could force Kiva to pay interest which means less money to help the poor. Competition in micro financing could hurt. However, competition allows for more people to get help. Competition also encourages advancements to be made.

Advantages of MicroPlace

MicroPlace pays interests, a quick glance at available investments show an interest return of 1 to 3% on them. You can help people in third world countries or in the United States.

The minimum investment is only $20. MicroPlace offers plenty of investment choices for an investor to select from and so far has helped over 350,000 people since 2006.

Advantages for Ebay from MicroPlace

Ebay gains more people using Paypal to make investments through MicroPlace. It helps Ebay look more like a social responsible organization. Helping others is always great Public Relations for any organization and MicroPlace does help others. Ebay could gain more customers who want to use Paypal to make investments through MicroPlace.

Conclusion:

MicroPlace has several advantages. The organization is under Ebay's control which means direct access to Paypal. Low investment minimums allow more investors to invest. The investments pay interests. MicroPlace reflects highly on Ebay. MicroPlace is a new place to help others.

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MicroPlace