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 — August 15, 2017
Following the recent pause of this partnership, WAGES repaid its outstanding balance to Kiva in full and these funds have now been distributed to lenders. Kiva and WAGES have also agreed to end their partnership after 9 years and more than $4.4 million in loans raised. We thank WAGES for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors. 

Status update — August 8, 2017
Kiva has decided to pause WAGES, as they are 6 months behind on their final repayment of funds owed to Kiva lenders. The most frequent cause of partner delinquency is a change in the partner’s degree of access to liquid assets, such as internal cash or short-term borrowings. Kiva is actively monitoring WAGES' evolving financial situation and will continue to follow up with the partner in an effort to recover payments due, and we will post more information to this page as it becomes available. 

Status update — June 13, 2016

Kiva recently re-assessed the level of risk associated with loans from this Lending Partner. During this process, our analysts gathered updated operational and financial information about the institution, spoke with key members of the staff and analyzed the Lending Partner’s loan products. As a result, WAGES's risk rating is now listed as 0.5 stars instead of 2 stars. The primary reasons for this change in rating are weaknesses in their MIS and credit processes and significant staff transitions in 2015 due to concerns of fraud. While the organization is working to improve their systems, staffing and processes, Kiva feels a 0.5 rating is more accurate to their current level of organizational risk. 

Partner description:
WAGES (Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social) was founded as a project of Care International Togo with the initial goal of meeting the socioeconomic needs of 3,900 Lomé women over a period of three years, with one possible renewal. This goal was reached and exceeded in less than three years thanks to a committed staff. Having achieved these excellent results, WAGES grew into a full-fledged microfinance institution.

WAGES is now officially recognized by the Togolese government as a nonprofit microfinance institution. They work in urban, periurban and rural areas in Togo through a network of 13 branch offices and 5 service points located in three of Togo’s regions. They offer credit, savings, and non-financial services (support and training) to groups and individual clients.

Currently, WAGES helps entrepreneurs working in commerce, agriculture, skilled services, artisinal production, investment and more.

Vision

WAGES aims to become a stable microfinance institution that will serve as a model for other Togolese organizations, and to actively participate in the socioeconomic development of its client base.

Most of WAGES’ clients are women. They include individuals, solidarity groups, credit associations, and corporations in urban, periurban and rural areas.

Service Offerings

The organization offers a range of financial services. These include short-term and voluntary savings products, as well as periodically accessible savings accounts. To encourage long-term savings, WAGES offers accounts that mature over a six month term, accounts with minimum deposits of $100, competitive interest rates, and flexible loan terms ranging from six months to five years. Its obligatory savings product enables them to borrow up to four times the amount they have deposited in urban areas and 10 times the amount in rural areas. Lastly, its tontine savings product requires daily deposits of up to 40 cents that add up over time.

WAGES’ loan offerings are similarly diverse. Here are some of the products it provides:

Ordinary loan: This loan is meant for clients with active savings accounts who are engaged in revenue-generating activity.

Direct loan: Meant for lowest-income borrowers, this loan is disbursed to clients organized into solidarity groups and requires no collateral.

Special loan: Made available to loyal WAGES clients, this short-term loan is offered on a 2-5 month repayment schedule.

Forced savings loan: A loan for which the borrower deposits 20% of the loan amount as collateral.

Tontine loan: This loan is available to clients who have regularly participated in Tontine savings during a 3-month period.

Rural loan: This loan is offered to individuals or groups of farmers and artisans living in rural areas and does not require savings.

In addition to savings and credit products, WAGE offers its clients Western Union money transfer services, and direct deposit with automatic repayment. This allows salaried borrowers to have their paychecks deposited in their WAGES accounts with their loan repayments deducated automatically.

Like many other Kiva partners, WAGES offers non-financial services to help borrowers succeed. These include training programs in business administration, savings management, revenue management, marketing, accounting, basic literacy, AIDS and malaria awareness, advocacy and more.

Additionally, WAGES helps organize businesses into solidarity groups and strengthens them with legal and administrative advice.

Status update — December 14, 2010

Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social (WAGES) has been a Kiva Lending Partner for 33 months. During that time, WAGES' borrowers have paid back $1,146,125 in loans, while WAGES has maintained a 0% delinquency and default rate.

Kiva recently conducted on-site monitoring at WAGES in order to re-assess the level of risk posed by this institution, as part of an ongoing effort to fully migrate risk ratings to our new risk rating system. During this visit our analysts were able to gather updated operational and financial information about the institution, as well as meet with key members of the staff.

The information gathered during this visit, when reviewed in Kiva's new risk rating model, has led us to decrease WAGES's risk rating from 5 to 4 stars. The analysts found that WAGES's risk variables are most representative of a 4-Star rating. WAGES has been informed of our analysts' findings and their corresponding decline in rating.