Marilou S. is from the village of Marabulig, Cauayan City, Isabela. She is the leader of a seven-member group loan offered by Kiva partner, ASKI. While each member of the group receives an individual loan, they are collectively responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults.

Marilou is 55 years old, married, and has four adult-aged children. To make a living, she owns and operates a general store. The main source of income for the business comes from selling both food and daily use products in the local community. Marilou has been engaged in her business for over 17 years and earns approximately 9,000 PHP per month from these activities.

In 2006, Marilou joined ASKI to gain access to financial services to help improve her living situation and ability to engage in business activities. She is requesting a new loan of 36,000 PHP, which will be used to purchase additional products to sell. This loan will be her ninth from ASKI. She plans to use the additional revenue generated from the business to improve and expand her business.

About ASKI

ASKI is one of the most successful microfinance institutions in the Philippines. It has 29 branches covering the Central and Northeastern areas. Its clients are mostly farmers, fisherfolk 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.