UPDATED 09:29 EDT / OCTOBER 20 2010

Visa and Kiva Partner Up and Expand Virtual Microloans to the Gulf Cost

Today credit card giant Visa and microloaning website Kiva announced a partnership in its expansion further inland towards U.S small businesses. After aiding hundreds of thousands of people throughout 54 nations, Kiva (and a $1 million disbursement by Visa) begins to significantly accelerate its sponsoring and energizing efforts into the U.S economy and small business in need, starting with its expansion to the gulf coast.

“The announcement [above] coincides with a major Kiva expansion in the Gulf Coast through the addition of ACCION Texas-Louisiana, the largest microfinance institution in the country, to the Kiva Field Partners network… [Janie B., founding president / CEO of ACCION:] The Gulf Coast has been hit hard by the economic recession and several disasters, businesses are critical to recovery and with Kiva lenders we will be able to invest in even more entrepreneurs.”

The Gulf Cost is a center of attention for Kiva for a very good reason. With the help of Visa, it will likely be able to build a very strong base of awareness, comprehension and empathy for its campaign, as the two will also add additional features to Kiva, conduct relevant market research around U.S business micro-financing and more.

In addition to its noble goals, Visa’s involvement in Kiva’s groundbreaking user to businesses microloaning is yet another landmark in major credit card companies’ involvement with newer and more advanced micropayment related services on the web. This indicated that like every other enterprise, credit card companies also head towards getting the max out of the boundary-breaking and billions-listing online community.


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