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Mirofinance helps give poor
people access to credit Online auctioneer Ebay has launched MicroPlace, a website
that allows people to invest in micro loans to the poor. Acting as a broker between
ordinary investors and microfinance organisations, MicroPlace helps finance the
very poor to launch their own ventures. Ordinary
investors in the US can invest as little as $100 for tenures of up to four years
for nominal returns of between $1.50 and $3 per year, to people who do not have
access to bank loans. Ebay
said it would reinvest any profits back in its own social initiatives. MicroPlace
selects the lenders who register on the site. It said that borrowers have a good
track record with a low defaults. For
the time being, Ms Turner said only US residents will be able to make investments
on the site via eBay''s paypal service or through a regular bank account.
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