Innovation and social change: the French are up to date when it comes to ideas and late when it comes to their implementation

Babyloan, a French peer-to-peer microcredit platform

February 18th, 2010 § 0

This post is also available in: French

A visit to Babyloan, first French peer-to-peer microcredit website

We were lucky enough to visit the « Babyhouse », headquarter of babyloan.org, first French peer-to -peer microcredit website.

What is it about? You choose the micro-entrepreneurs you want to help, you lend them money, you follow the cycle of your money and get repaid. Created a year ago the platform gathered 4000 members who lent 370 000 € to 1300 micro entrepreneurs in developing countries.

We came there on Friday evening, just in time for their traditional “Friday drink”. We were greeted by Arnaud Poissonnier, the founder, his team… and a baby.

What is the added value of a peer-to-peer platform, compared to traditional micro-credit?

On Babyloan, the layman can register and lend money to microentrepreneurs. Microfinance looks easier and is accessible to anyone.
Peer to peer microcredit brings a solution to the growing demand for cash, coming from micro-entrepreneurs.
You choose the micro-entrepreneurs you want to help and Babyloan guarantees that your money goes to them. You know where your cash goes and you can follow its impact. The website is designed like a social network.

When we asked him about what he thought of French people, social innovation and social change, Arnaud Poissonnier gave us an interesting answer: Frenchmen are up to date when it comes to good ideas but are late when it comes to their propagation and implementation. We can find a lot of great achievements (aiderdonner, soliland, izi-collecte…) but they have very few users and a restricted visibility. The crowd is slow to adopt new tools. As we are dealing with tools in which it is vital to reach a long trail effect, it is quite a pity. There is a lot of work to teach the people how to understand and to use properly these new tools.

Babyloan is a good example of this tendency. Its 370,000 € lent must be compared to Kiva’s 67 millions (dollars) in four years… There is still a lot of work for Babyloan: democratise micro-credit and turn famous in France and elsewhere in order to increase volume. Arnaud Poissonnier and his team are working on this, using social media: their website, Babyloan’s blog, another blog on lefigaro.fr, facebook (1769 members) and we have good reasons to think that, with time, it will not be necessary to explain what is Babyloan.

What about you, had you heard about Babyloan before?

To conclude, a short movie on the Babyhouse (in French):