Status Update - April 18, 2012

Al-Thiqa and Kiva have agreed to discontinue their partnership after three years of collaboration. Due to Iraqi regulations, Al-Thiqa had to take extra steps to wire repayments (see update from May 25, 2011) and decided to stop posting loans to the Kiva site. In May 2011, the organization paid off its outstanding balance of $87,175. All of its loans with Kiva have now ended and the partnership is officially closed. Kiva thanks Al-Thiqa for being one of our earliest Lending Partners in Iraq, and for its reliability and transparency.


Status Update - May 25, 2011

 
Kiva has received a full repayment for Al Thiqa’s outstanding balance of $87,175.
 
Ordinarily, funds are paid back to lenders only when the repayments come in from the appropriate borrowers.  In this case though, every time funds are transferred out of Iraq, Al Thiqa is now being charged a large fee.  As a result, Al Thiqa would suffer a significant financial burden if they processed and wired repayments each month as they came in from borrowers.
 
To address this, Al Thiqa has requested that they be allowed to repay Kiva lenders in one large payment, ahead of the borrower repayment schedules.  This would allow them to pay the fund transfer fee only once, saving the organization a significant amount of money.  Ordinarily, Kiva is reluctant to break the financial connection between borrowers and lenders.  In this case though, Kiva has agreed to do so in order to mitigate a heavy financial burden on a fellow non-profit organization.
 
The $87,175 in repaid funds will be immediately applied to corresponding lender accounts, and full repayment on all loans will be made ahead of schedule.
 
Status Update - April 26, 2011:

Al Thiqa has been a partner of Kiva's for seventeen months, successfully paying back over $133,000 in loans since the partnership began in October of 2009.  Al Thiqa has contacted Kiva to request a pause in posting new profiles to the Kiva website.  Because of this, no new profiles have been uploaded to Kiva from Al Thiqa since March 17, 2011.

There are $87,175 in current outstanding loans; as repayments come in from these borrowers, those funds will be paid back to lenders.

We remain committed to potentially re-opening the fundraising partnership in the future, and will keep this page updated with further updates as information becomes available.


Partner Description:

Al-Thiqa, meaning Trust in Arabic, is an independent nonprofit Iraqi nongovernmental Organization (NGO) engaged in lending to micro and small enterprises and low-income households in northern and central Iraq. Founded in 2004 by ACDI/VOCA, a U.S. NGO and registered with Iraq’s NGO Assistance Office, Al-Thiqa has been an independent organization from its very start. Today Al-Thiqa is the largest Iraqi NGO engaged in lending activities.

Al-Thiqa’s mission is to participate in rebuilding Iraq’s economy by providing transparent financial services to micro and small enterprises and low-income households in Iraq.

Al-Thiqa offers individual and solidarity group loans, conventional and Islamic, for working capital and small investments in established and new businesses, loans to taxi operators for parts and maintenance, agricultural loans for crop production, animal husbandry and food processing and housing loans for home renovation and improvements.

Al-Thiqa is a member of the Iraq Microfinance Network and an affiliate member of Sanabel Microfinance Network of Arab Countries. Al-Thiqa received a 4-diamond certificate of transparency 2007 from the Microfinance Information Exchange for the disclosure of its financial performance in FY2007. In 2009 Al-Thiqa received a certificate of the Microfinance Institution of the Year from the USAID Provincial Economic Growth program in Iraq for achieving the highest international recognition for financial transparency and accountability during the period April 1, 2008 – March 2009.


Repayment Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Start Date On Kiva Oct 26, 2009 Oct 12, 2005
Total Loans $287,600 $2,053,171,115
Amount of raised Inactive loans $0 $319,675
Number of raised Inactive loans 0 309
Amount of Paying Back Loans $0 $156,095,200
Number of Paying Back Loans 0 187,574
Amount of Ended Loans $287,600 $1,853,929,865
Number of Ended Loans 117 2,498,679
Delinquency Rate 0.00% 13.14%
Amount in Arrears $0 $12,496,465
Outstanding Portfolio $0 $95,082,592
Number of Loans Delinquent 0 66,954
Default Rate 0.00% 1.82%
Amount of Ended Loans Defaulted $0 $33,755,381
Number of Ended Loans Defaulted 0 89,050
Currency Exchange Loss Rate 0.00% 0.47%
Amount of Currency Exchange Loss $0 $12,742,203
Refund Rate 0.00% 0.53%
Amount of Refunded Loans $0 $10,944,770
Number of Refunded Loans 0 9,671

Loan Characteristics On Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Loans to Women Borrowers 22.69% 78.49%
Average Loan Size $2,458 $393
Average Individual Loan Size $2,458 $585
Average Group Loan Size $0 $1,912
Average number of borrowers per group 0 8.3
Average GDP per capita (PPP) in local country $7,100 $5,592
Average Loan Size / GDP per capita (PPP) 34.62% 7.03%
Average Time to Fund a Loan 3.51 days 9.12 days
Average Dollars Raised Per Day Per Loan $700.58 $43.06
  Average Loan Term 12.02 months 11.5 months

Journaling Performance on Kiva

    This Lending Partner All Kiva Partners
  Total Journals 0 1,223,113
  Journaling Rate 0.00% 41.90%
  Average Number of Comments Per Journal 0.00 0.02
  Average Number of Recommendations Per Journal 0.00 0.55

Borrowing Cost Comparison (based on 2009 data)

    This Lending Partner Median for MFI's in Country All Kiva Partners
  Average Cost to Borrower N/A 27.00% PY 26.44% PY
  Profitability (return on assets) N/A 16.7% -1.67%
  Average Loan Size (% of per capita income) N/A 26.00% 0.00%

Country Fast Facts

Lending Partner Staff

Nadia Namken