Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.

Status Update- November 15, 2022


Kiva and Fundacion Creho have agreed to end their partnership after nearly 8 years and more than $292,000 in loans raised. This partner has repaid its outstanding balance to Kiva in full, and these funds have been distributed to lenders. We thank Creho for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors.


 Status update- September 9, 2021


Kiva has moved this Lending Partner to inactive status, which means Fundación Creho is no longer fundraising loans on Kiva, though Kiva fully expects the partner to continue to send repayments owed to Kiva lenders for as long as the partner has an outstanding balance. Fundación Creho hasn't posted a new loan in over 2 years. If and when this partner requests to fundraise again on Kiva, Kiva will first conduct any additional monitoring and due diligence tasks we believe necessary.


Status update — January 25, 2016

After 28 months on Kiva and 66 loans fundraised, Fundación CREHO has graduated out of Kiva’s Experimental Partnership program and been given a risk rating of 1.5 stars. 

Partner description:

Fundación CREHO (Honduran Foundation for Educational Loans) is a lending institution founded in 2002 in Tegucigalpa that focuses exclusively on student loans. It aims to be the leading private organization offering education loans in the country, contributing to the transformation of Honduras by enabling the training of qualified people. 

CREHO was founded as a collaboration of 98 small organizations that were interested in creating a private student lending organization in Honduras. 

Today, Honduras suffers from unequal income distribution and high underemployment; more than a third of the population is unemployed or underemployed. Part of the reason for this is lack of access to education among youth.

CREHO has formal partnerships with a number of universities throughout the country. Students can attend any institution within CREHO’s network, which covers the vast majority of quality Honduran institutions. 

Kiva lenders’ funds are used to help the organization give even more students in Honduras the opportunity to pursue higher education and their career goals.

A unique lending approach:

CREHO offers loans to cover tuition costs, including enrollment at technical and vocational schools and universities for undergraduate, master’s and doctoral programs. Additionally, students can get a loan to cover their rent, food and transport expenses as well as school supplies like computers.

About 58% of CREHO’s beneficiaries are women borrowers, and more than 56% of students take out loans for the purposes of attending college. While CREHO is still quite small, its rate of growth is not insignificant, especially taking into account its small staff of three full-time employees. In 2010, the organization disbursed about $190,000 in loans. In 2012, that number jumped to $250,000. 

The number of students has also grown quickly between 2010 and 2012, as well as the number of people who successfully complete their funded programs. According to the loan exit interviews conducted by the organization, 68% of its previous borrowers work for the private sector, and about 5% have founded their own businesses.

The average worker in Honduras makes roughly $243 per month ($2,916 per year), which is slightly under the national minimum wage. According to the organization’s research, average family income of CREHO students is $5,404. It estimates that expected student income is likely to increase by 265% by virtue of having a college degree.


Repayment Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Start Date On Kiva Aug 8, 2013 Oct 12, 2005
Total Loans $292,875 $2,061,427,940
Amount of raised Inactive loans $0 $389,200
Number of raised Inactive loans 0 318
Amount of Paying Back Loans $0 $151,289,490
Number of Paying Back Loans 0 180,128
Amount of Ended Loans $292,875 $1,864,455,145
Number of Ended Loans 108 2,517,146
Delinquency Rate 0.00% 11.61%
Amount in Arrears $0 $10,584,537
Outstanding Portfolio $0 $91,136,425
Number of Loans Delinquent 0 34,410
Default Rate 3.34% 1.83%
Amount of Ended Loans Defaulted $9,774 $34,072,925
Number of Ended Loans Defaulted 6 91,307
Currency Exchange Loss Rate 0.62% 0.47%
Amount of Currency Exchange Loss $1,827 $12,915,654
Refund Rate 0.00% 0.55%
Amount of Refunded Loans $0 $11,263,070
Number of Refunded Loans 0 9,868

Loan Characteristics On Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Loans to Women Borrowers 59.66% 78.52%
Average Loan Size $2,712 $393
Average Individual Loan Size $2,712 $585
Average Group Loan Size $0 $1,914
Average number of borrowers per group 0 8.3
Average GDP per capita (PPP) in local country $4,800 $5,592
Average Loan Size / GDP per capita (PPP) 56.50% 7.03%
Average Time to Fund a Loan 9.35 days 9.14 days
Average Dollars Raised Per Day Per Loan $290.00 $43.02
  Average Loan Term 55.36 months 11.5 months

Journaling Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Total Journals 18 1,228,670
  Journaling Rate 14.71% 41.93%
  Average Number of Comments Per Journal 0.00 0.02
  Average Number of Recommendations Per Journal 0.00 0.55

Borrowing Cost Comparison (based on 2017 data)

    This Lending Partner Median for MFI's in Country All Kiva Partners
  Average Cost to Borrower 15% APR 36.00% PY 27.12% PY
  Profitability (return on assets) 1% 2.2% -1.71%
  Average Loan Size (% of per capita income) N/A 41.00% 0.00%

Country Fast Facts

Lending Partner Staff