Louisville becomes ninth city to add micro-loan organization Kiva

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- This morning Louisville officially launched as the ninth Kiva city.

It means small business on both sides of river can

. The site lets borrowers get credit with a character reference instead of collateral.

Kiva Zip is a crowd-funding non-profit. The micro-loans eliminate the bank and take the lending straight to the public.

Borrowers are approved based on a character reference from a Kiva trustee.

The concept is new to Louisville but worldwide Kiva has crowd-funded more than $650 million in micro-loans.

"We want to see, over time, at least a thousand local companies funded through Kiva Zip," said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.

Kiva borrowers have a 92 percent repayment rate, but if they default, the lender loses their money.

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