Kiva ropes in NetSuite to reach global lenders, Microfinance institutions

Online microfinance firm Kiva has found a partner in Netsuite Inc., a cloud-based financial software vendor to provide micro-credit to global borrowers.

Kiva, which grew fast in numbers and donations when the US economy was melting down, is trying to keep its operations global, though it came under cloud for mentioning recipients on its website ahead of handing over loans to them.

Kiva said NetSuite’s generous and free cloud computing solution helps its expanding needs in accounting, expense and payables management, reporting, and multi-currency management. Since its founding, Kiva has facilitated more than $175 million in loans to entrepreneurs in 55 countries, it said in a statement.

Kiva claims to have provided loans to 510,000 recipients through 120 local microfinance institutions. Kiva has raised money online from 510,000 lenders around the world.

Transparent, reliable multicurrency support expedites the entry and validation of expense reports for dozens of globe-trotting employees, and NetSuite’s approval workflows ensure that expense reports automatically flow to supervisors, where they can be easily reviewed and approved, the statement said.

Powered by the NetSuite Employee Center, the system supports clear, informative expense categorization and automatically displays Kiva’s approved per diem rates based on territory, adding clarity to the process, it said.

“NetSuite.org is always looking to help rapidly growing, high impact organizations like Kiva,” said David Geilhufe, NetSuite.org Program Manager. “These are the organizations best able to take advantage of our software to support their missions, and to realize NetSuite.org’s goal to help more people do good, better.”