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, 2018

Kiva granted ACE a grace period on payments owed to Kiva lenders since they were not allowed to fundraise between April and July due to high delinquency. ACE has remained in contact with Kiva as they worked to improve their credit processes and has been allowed to resume fundraising.


Partner Description:

African Clean Energy (ACE) is a family-owned social enterprise, which manufactures and sells innovative cookstoves in Lesotho, Uganda, and Cambodia. The company designs highly efficient cookstoves that burn smokelessly and use about 50-70% less fuel than traditional cookstoves. The solar-charged cookstoves also feature a unique USB port for charging phones and running LED lamps.

ACE cookstoves are regarded as one of the highest quality cookstoves on the market, which reduce emissions enough to yield health benefits.

A unique lending approach:

Kiva funding would allow ACE to expand its existing loan program for customers to purchase cookstoves in Lesotho, Uganda, and Cambodia.


Repayment Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Start Date On Kiva Jul 20, 2015 Oct 12, 2005
Total Loans $2,316,925 $2,083,700,670
Amount of raised Inactive loans $0 $808,050
Number of raised Inactive loans 0 235
Amount of Paying Back Loans $305,350 $150,753,980
Number of Paying Back Loans 2,508 181,355
Amount of Ended Loans $2,011,575 $1,883,928,235
Number of Ended Loans 11,020 2,545,348
Delinquency Rate 95.19% 12.66%
Amount in Arrears $143,485 $11,497,266
Outstanding Portfolio $150,732 $90,849,468
Number of Loans Delinquent 2,412 40,414
Default Rate 9.58% 1.83%
Amount of Ended Loans Defaulted $192,798 $34,455,396
Number of Ended Loans Defaulted 2,193 91,722
Currency Exchange Loss Rate 0.69% 0.47%
Amount of Currency Exchange Loss $16,099 $13,160,867
Refund Rate 0.02% 0.54%
Amount of Refunded Loans $475 $11,296,185
Number of Refunded Loans 2 9,885

Loan Characteristics On Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Loans to Women Borrowers 62.31% 78.57%
Average Loan Size $103 $394
Average Individual Loan Size $113 $584
Average Group Loan Size $461 $1,917
Average number of borrowers per group 4.9 8.3
Average GDP per capita (PPP) in local country $2,200 $5,592
Average Loan Size / GDP per capita (PPP) 4.70% 7.04%
Average Time to Fund a Loan 0.54 days 9.17 days
Average Dollars Raised Per Day Per Loan $190.07 $42.93
  Average Loan Term 12.81 months 11.5 months

Journaling Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Total Journals 5,070 1,240,550
  Journaling Rate 24.89% 41.84%
  Average Number of Comments Per Journal 0.00 0.02
  Average Number of Recommendations Per Journal 0.00 0.54

Borrowing Cost Comparison (based on 2017 data)

    This Lending Partner Median for MFI's in Country All Kiva Partners
  Average Cost to Borrower 0% APR N/A 27.70% PY
  Profitability (return on assets) -138.07% N/A -2.47%
  Average Loan Size (% of per capita income) N/A N/A 0.00%

Country Fast Facts

Lending Partner Staff

Wang /CTO
Liza Heykoop
Dylan Rogers
Rolf Schudde
Judith Walker