RAPID RESPONSES
Support start ups
[Re: Cheap money and more debt won’t help the young, yesterday]
While I sympathise with Philip Salter’s concerns about taxpayers’ money being thrown at the government’s start-up loan scheme, some budding entrepreneurs will always need loans. I’d prefer that private lenders provide these loans, but for some reason this is not happening. I’m a member of kiva.org, a micro-finance lending website that allows anyone to lend to entrepreneurs across the world, especially in developing countries, in blocks of $25. Combining these blocks together, Kiva then provides loans, typically worth a few hundred dollars, to start-up companies. Lenders can join lending teams and invite others to join. I want to encourage a Kiva-type scheme to help young entrepreneurs across Britain, the same group of people being targeted by the government’s start-up loan scheme. After all, many start-ups don’t need that much money. There must be many people like me who would be more than happy to provide £25 or more towards a specific loan to a specific entrepreneur, but unfortunately, to date there are still no Kiva-type schemes linking lenders to entrepreneurs in Britain. Until such a scheme emerges, we are going to have to give the government a little credit for getting a little more credit to budding entrepreneurs.
Syed Kamall
Conservative MEP for London