Some recent studies suggest that microloan organisations, whilst beneficial to the individual, don't actually increase income for the borrower; learnings that can be used to reshape current and future programmes.
They took out their own $125 microloan to start a small business growing radishes, and conducted a series of financially themed interviews with their neighbours.
Examining more than 13,000 microloan requests -- equally successful and unsuccessful -- they found that borrowers' photographs, if they evoked positive emotions, were much more likely to result in loans.
He conceded that the microloan industry had come under increasingly tight scrutiny, but the company sees itself as a technology firm in the credit market.