After 14 years of successful microfinance experience in Central America and Ghana as a nonprofit, Global Brigades (a current Kiva partner since 2015) realized that to scale its lending program, it needed to attract different types of external funding, thus the creation of Eskala. Eskala is a new legal entity that is a spin-off of Global Brigades' microfinance program. Eskala's goal is to be in the thousands of community banks, and Global Brigades (GB) did not believe their nonprofit could raise the necessary funds to meet that goal. However, the nonprofit (Global Brigades) owns most of the Company, so it is still benefiting as Eskala succeeds. 


Eskala's mission is to structure and fund small or starting community-owned banks and farming cooperatives whose members have been historically excluded from essential financial services. Lending to community-owned banks allows individuals to access financial services and establishes a local financial entity to promote sustainable economic growth in the community by offering hyperlocal savings and loan products. Eskala's microfinance technicians serve in a typical loan officer role and provide substantial financial literacy education and training on successfully operating a community-owned bank to community leaders. This practice strengthens leadership and empowers community members (primarily women) to take ownership of a stable, local financial structure. These cooperatives use the loans for either strategic investments that benefit the entire group, like shared equipment/seed/land, or provide financial inclusion to the local population through smaller business and agriculture loans.



Repayment Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Start Date On Kiva Nov 24, 2022 Oct 12, 2005
Total Loans $376,400 $2,040,080,360
Amount of raised Inactive loans $0 $565,830
Number of raised Inactive loans 0 459
Amount of Paying Back Loans $148,575 $155,797,470
Number of Paying Back Loans 18 187,495
Amount of Ended Loans $227,825 $1,842,928,565
Number of Ended Loans 26 2,481,804
Delinquency Rate 1.29% 13.31%
Amount in Arrears $1,541 $12,620,555
Outstanding Portfolio $100,686 $94,833,317
Number of Loans Delinquent 1 67,667
Default Rate 0.00% 1.82%
Amount of Ended Loans Defaulted $0 $33,629,436
Number of Ended Loans Defaulted 0 88,860
Currency Exchange Loss Rate 0.12% 0.47%
Amount of Currency Exchange Loss $650 $12,608,670
Refund Rate 0.54% 0.54%
Amount of Refunded Loans $2,050 $10,935,995
Number of Refunded Loans 1 9,668

Loan Characteristics On Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Loans to Women Borrowers 58.70% 78.46%
Average Loan Size $8,410 $393
Average Individual Loan Size $8,410 $586
Average Group Loan Size $0 $1,909
Average number of borrowers per group 0 8.3
Average GDP per capita (PPP) in local country $4,800 $5,594
Average Loan Size / GDP per capita (PPP) 175.21% 7.02%
Average Time to Fund a Loan 20.72 days 9.1 days
Average Dollars Raised Per Day Per Loan $405.92 $43.13
  Average Loan Term 16.2 months 11.49 months

Journaling Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Total Journals 9 1,215,752
  Journaling Rate 19.05% 41.91%
  Average Number of Comments Per Journal 0.00 0.02
  Average Number of Recommendations Per Journal 0.00 0.56

Borrowing Cost Comparison (based on 2022 data)

    This Lending Partner Median for MFI's in Country All Kiva Partners
  Average Cost to Borrower N/A N/A 26.44% PY
  Profitability (return on assets) -9.71% N/A -1.31%
  Average Loan Size (% of per capita income) N/A N/A 0.00%

Country Fast Facts

Lending Partner Staff

Nancy Amador
Steven Atamian
Katy Colindres
Marcia Cortes
Matias Gonzalez
Colleen O'brien
Samuel Ponce
Luis Quan
Miguel Angel Rodriguez
Karla Sanchez
Isis Valle
Juan David Villegas
Lorena Zepeda