Cows, Kiva, and Prosper.Com: how disintermediation and the internet are changing microfinance

Abstract

Recent advances in finance and technology are providing new opportunities for individual investors to support and invest in microenterprises, and in some cases, bypassing intermediaries altogether. While these efforts at disintermediation are still new, they present a new way for poor communities to attract capital that has the potential to unleash the entrepreneurial capacity of the poor. They might also hold the key for innovation in other related fields, such as community development finance.