eBay's Microloans a Way for Anyone to Invest in the Coming Jump Point Economy

eBay announced yesterday the launch of a microcredit venture called Microplace that will alllow those of us in the industrialized world to invest in the world's working poor--and earn a fair return on our money.

So-called microloans were pioneered by Bangladeshi professor-turned-banker Muhammad Yunus in the 1970s. The loans have been used since to start thousands of small businesses--farms, craft and furniture makers, sewing shops, all manner of enterprises--in some of the poorest places on earth. As these entrepreneurs create cash flow, they pay back the loans with interest. Significantly, a big chunk of microloans go to women entrepreneurs, folks who might never get backing from traditional banks at home. It has been a win-win effort for all. Online microlender Kiva has experienced similar results.

So successful has Yunus been in changing people's lives that and he and his Grameen Bank were last year awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

So why is the eBay entry so significant? Because eBay, with millions of users, has tremendous reach, has earned the trust of the world's online community, and makes things simple to use. Predictably, they have made microloans on Microplace easy and safe to make.

Importantly, ebay's Microplace will bring greater exposure to the benefits--for all--of microloans. Today, 1 billion people are part of the integrated modern economy. As big as that sounds, it is only 15 percent of the world's population. By 2011, the year of the Jump Point, 3 billion people--the world's entire workforce--will have access to the global economy via a Net device or mobile phone. Whether this influx of new participants creates extraordinary new wealth or whether it creates unprecedented chaos and friction depends on how much opportunity the bargain creates for the most disenfranchised of the new Netizens.

Visit Microplace or Kiva today. Consider microloans an act of enlightened self-interest. For the price of a haircut, you can feel good in the short run by helping a man (or woman) feed a family, and you can make a nice return on your money by investing in new growth in emerging economies. Most importantly, in the long run, you are creating a shared sense of hope and optimism in parts of the world that really need it. And hope is a great thing to invest in these days.