Babyloan, laureate of the “Marketplace on innovative financial solutions for development” competition
Babyloan is one of the five winners of the international competition of the “Marketplace on innovative financial solutions for development” (MIF), thanks to its project “Ch@nge for Micro Credits”. Babyloan wins an international prize initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the French Cooperation, confirming the success story of the French solidarity based micro-lending website.
Created a year and a half ago, Babyloan is the first French website on solidarity based micro-lending. The organization enables to all internet-users to sponsor micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries, lending them an amount of money for the realization of theirs economics projects and the development of their livelihoods. Already 6,000 members lent 600,000 Euros to more than 2,100 micro-credit beneficiaries in eight developing countries.
The project “Ch@nge for Micro Credits”, winner of the MIF competition
The Babyloan “Ch@nge for Micro Credits” project enables the e-consumer to round off the amount of its purchase to the euro or dozens euro superior and even more when he buys online. The euros collected are deposited on a virtual money box on Banyloan.org. Once, the amount deposited reaches 20 euro, the “e-consum’actor” has the possibility to lend his money to micro-entrepreneurs in the whole world. At the end of this loan, the money can be recuperated or lent again. It is not a donation, it is a loan, that’s where the innovation and originality of the project resides in.
The project was praised in the framework of “Marketplace on innovative financial solutions for development” competition which aims at promoting new financial methods responding to the actual challenge in development. The 110 international experts on financial innovation and development judged the Babyloan project feasible on a large scale and relevant enough to constitute an innovative financial response to concrete issues of development. Babyloan won over 20 finalists who were selected among 800 contestants from 15 developing countries representing the five continents. For its victory, Babyloan received an award of 100 000 USD.
The "Marketplace on innovative financial solutions for development”
The competition was part of the “Marketplace on innovative financial solutions for development” which took place on March 4th and 5th, 2010 at the Conference Center of the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (La Villette) in Paris (France). The MIF gathered together practitioners of development, donators, philanthropists, social businessmen, intellectuals, financial institution’s representatives and decision-makers to exchange experiences and ideas regarding financial innovations to development. The overall aim is to reach successful projects with prospects of large-scale implementations.
