Intuit, Kiva Offer Financing to Underserved Small Businesses Through QuickBooks Financing Platform
20 November 2015 - 12:30AM
Business Wire
Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation Donates
$50,000 to Kiva Zip, Pledging Half of Funds to Women-owned Small
Businesses
Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) and Kiva Zip.org have partnered to
make it easier for underserved small businesses to obtain loans
through the QuickBooks Financing Platform.
To further bolster the initiative, the Intuit Financial Freedom
Foundation (IFFF) has established a $50,000 loan matching program
on Kiva Zip, half of which will be designated for women-owned small
businesses in support of Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. Visitors to
KivaZip.org can choose a small business owner that they want to
support with a loan of $25 or more. That loan helps to crowdfund
the borrower’s full loan request. IFFF’s loan matching will match
what the public crowdfunds, doubling the public’s impact. As a
result, underserved small businesses seeking credit through the
QuickBooks Financing platform could get funded twice as quickly.
Small business owners featured on Kiva Zip include artisans,
immigrants, refugees, veterans, small farmers, neighborhood shops
and home-based businesses across the country.
“We are excited about our partnership with Kiva Zip and to offer
small businesses the critical capital they need to start and grow
their businesses,” said Jeffrey Kaufman, business leader of
QuickBooks Financing at Intuit. “This platform serves a segment of
small businesses who previously had no, or very limited,
opportunities to get the funding they needed. Additionally, we are
so pleased the Intuit Financial Freedom Foundation is joining with
QBF to help Intuit do even more to support small businesses, in
particular helping women-owned small businesses to thrive.”
Kiva is filling a critical lending gap for small
business entrepreneurs across the country. The vast majority of
small business owners and budding entrepreneurs cannot access the
capital they need to start up or expand. They
are denied loans for any number of
reasons: the loan amount they seek is too small, their business is
too young, their plan is too innovative or their credit history is
too short or damaged. Kiva Zip loans are offered at
0% interest with no fees, and are available regardless of credit
score or type of small business.
Kiva Zip Loan Process
Kiva Zip loans are available up to $10,000. The public helps
fund the loans by crowdfunding in increments of $25 using the
online platform. Kiva Zip uses an entrepreneur’s network as a
measure of creditworthiness. Borrowers start by inviting family and
friends to launch fundraising efforts and, after reaching a
designated threshold, the Kiva Zip community takes care of the
rest. More than 90% of loan requests are fully funded, which is
rare among crowdfunding sites.
“We are thrilled by our partnership with Intuit and its
foundation,” said Jonny Price, senior director at Kiva. “Kiva
borrowers have an 89% repayment rate, which means that once the
loans are repaid, we can recycle the foundation’s funding to match
additional loans, further maximizing the impact we make for small
businesses.”
Intuit QuickBooks Financing
QuickBooks Financing is a marketplace of small business finance
products covering the full spectrum of credit offerings including,
short- and long-term loans, lines of credit, invoice financing and
Small Business Administration loans. All financing partners and
products are fully vetted by Intuit. In May, Intuit established a
$100 million fund in partnership with OnDeck that will give small
business owners a fast, easy way to help grow their
business through a simple application process.
The partnership with Kiva is another example of how Intuit
QuickBooks Financing is finding new, innovative ways to offer small
businesses faster, more efficient access to capital.
Resources:
- About QuickBooks Financing
- About Intuit Financial Freedom
Foundation
- QuickBooks on Twitter
- QuickBooks on Facebook
- Intuit Press Room
- Intuit on Twitter
- Intuit on Facebook
- Intuit Community
- Intuit Small Business Blog
About Kiva
Kiva.org is the world’s first and largest crowdfunding platform
for social good with a mission to connect people through lending to
alleviate poverty. By lending at little as $25, anyone can help a
borrower start or grow a business, go to school, access clean
energy and realize their potential. Since 2005, Kiva and their
growing global community of 1.3 million lenders have crowdfunded
nearly $750 million in microloans to 1.7 million entrepreneurs in
86 countries, with a 98% repayment rate.
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day (WED)
Women’s Entrepreneurship Day is a day on which the work of women
entrepreneurs is observed and discussed, held on the nineteenth of
November of each year. The inaugural event was held in New York
City at the United Nations, with additional events being held
simultaneously in several other countries. 144 nations overall
recognized the first WED in 2014. It was described by Fortune
Magazine as “a global movement to celebrate and support female
founders and shed light on some of their challenges.” Forbes
Magazine wrote that the intention was also “to mobilize a global
network of female business owners, entrepreneurs and change makers
who support and empower this community of women entrepreneurs and
their businesses.”
About Intuit Inc.
Intuit Inc. creates business and financial management solutions
that simplify the business of life for small businesses, consumers
and accounting professionals.
Its flagship products and services include QuickBooks®, and
TurboTax® and Mint.com, which make it easier to manage small
businesses and payroll processing; tax preparation and filing; and
personal finance. ProSeries® and Lacerte® are Intuit's leading tax
preparation offerings for professional accountants.
Founded in 1983, Intuit had revenue of $4.2 billion in its
fiscal year 2015, with approximately 7,700 employees in major
offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,
India, Australia, and other locations. More information can be
found at www.intuit.com.
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Intuit Inc.Steve Sharpe,
650-224-2362stephen_sharpe@intuit.comorAccess CommunicationsJen
Garcia, 415-844-6244jgarcia@accesspr.com
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