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 26, 2016

Kiva and MCDT have agreed to end their partnership after nearly 8 years and more than $2 million in loans raised. This Lending Partner has repaid its outstanding balance to Kiva in full, and these funds have been distributed to lenders. We thank MCDT for the years of collaboration and wish them success in their future endeavors.

Partner description:

MICRO CREDIT FOR DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION SACCO (MCDT SACCO) was registered on the 29th January 2008. The institution was formerly known as Micro Credit Development Trust (MCDT) an indigenous development Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) founded in 1996 by a group of 19 professional Ugandans and SAVE THE CHILDREN, NORWAY (formerly REDD BARNA) under the inspiration of the Bangladesh Grameen Bank Model. The aim was to create an institution that would make positive changes to poor people’s lives through credit, delivered using the solidarity groups lending methodology and to facilitate savings mobilisation from her members. The Founder Member’s original plan was to start a financial institution that would eventually be owned by the beneficiaries.

The mission of MCDT SACCO is to provide financial services on a sustainable basis to the lower strata of the poor, especially women, for their economic and social development. The goal is to provide savings and credit related financial services to improve standards of living in the Member households. The primary objectives are to:

(i) improve income of member’s households;

(ii) improve voluntary savings among the beneficiaries;

(iii) have increased tangible assets by members in their households; and

(iv) increase members’ ability to make informed decisions about their lives.

Clientele

MCDT SACCO clients are the poor people in the urban, peri-urban and rural areas in which MCDT SACCO operates. The client must be aged between 18 and 68. The MFI operates deep in rural areas of Masaka and Tororo districts. There is one peri-urban branch of Luwero and an urban branch of Kampala operating in 4 of the five divisions where clients mainly live in slum dwellings. Currently, 100% of the clientele is women.

Financial Services Delivery

MCDT SACCO adopts the Grameen Bank approach of credit delivery via the solidarity groups lending methodology. Members in a group of 5 co-guarantee each other as security for MCDT SACCO loans.

Specific Activities

Presently, MCDT SACCO is offering two major loan products namely a general loan and a school fees loan. There is compulsory savings collection tied to the general loan. Pre-disbursement training covering basic literacy skills like name writing and awareness of MCDT SACCO policies and procedures, is offered as a prerequisite to access credit.

A note about MCDT SACCO's portfolio yield:

We care deeply about the cost that Kiva borrowers pay for their loans, which is why fair pricing is a core part of our initial due diligence process for Lending Partners. With Kiva's 0% capital, many of our Lending Partners are also able to add additional value to their loans by reducing interest rates, offering non-financial services or creating new loan products.

For partners with reported portfolio yields or average APRs higher than 50%, Kiva takes steps to check that the high rates are justified by the impact of the loans. Kiva also verifies that the partner is not generating unreasonable profits or paying inflated salaries, and that the partner’s elevated operating costs are justified by its operating environment and/or the design of its loan products.

We seek to support loans that don’t impose an unjustifiable cost burden on hard-working borrowers. We nevertheless recognize that in order to reach vulnerable and excluded people with high-impact products and services, some of our partners incur high costs that necessitate charging higher-than-average costs to borrowers in order to allow for sustainability and scale. 

Factors that drive up the costs that this partner organization charges its borrowers include:

• They operate in a market with high inflation—averaging 13% from 2011-2013, which means that the rates you see on Kiva are overstated, since loans are given in local currency, which lost value much more quickly than the U.S. dollar.
• This partner is working in a country where doing business is difficult and costly due to regulatory, procedural and governance issues.
• They provide very short term loans, which leads to higher operating costs, since each short-term loan generates a smaller amount of revenue than a longer-term loan.
• They work in areas with very poor infrastructure, such as limited roads. This increases the costs of finding clients and maintaining branch offices.
• They’re a small company or organization that hasn’t yet achieved the scale and efficiency necessary to reach sustainability and reduce pricing, but the impact of their services merits the opportunity to prove their business model.