Elias R. Sr. is from the village of La Suerte, Angadanan, Isabela. He is 57 years old. Elias is the group leader of a 19-member group loan offered by ASKI, a Kiva partner. While each member of the group receives an individual loan, they are all collectively responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults.

Elias is married and has nine adult children. To make a living, Elias runs a general store. The main source of income for the business comes from selling both food and daily-use products in the local community. Elias has been engaged in his business for over 10 years and earns approximately 2,500 Philippine pesos a month for these activities.

In 2010, Elias joined ASKI to gain access to financial services to help improve his living situation and ability to engage in business activities. Elias is requesting a new loan of 5,000 PHP, which will be used to purchase additional inventory and working capital. This will be the first loan taken out by Elias from ASKI. He plans to use the additional revenue generated from the business to improve/expand his business.

About ASKI:

ASKI is one of the most successful microfinance institutions in the Philippines. It has 25 branches covering the Central and Northeastern areas. Its clients are mostly of farmers, fisherfolks and small entrepreneurs.

*Note: To maximize efficiency and reduce costs, this loan was posted using a template to automate the translation by Kiva. Given that manual translation of entrepreneur profiles is costly, Kiva created this template for our Field Partner to allow them to continue to post loans in English while providing quality and accurate information to Kiva lenders.