Shared Interest
January 19, 2009KartiMarket is pleased to announce that it is now a member of Shared Interest, a UK-based co-operative lending society that provides fair and just financial services to disadvantaged communities to enable them to trade their way out of poverty.
Shared Interest’s mission is in line with KartiMarket’s own mission to aid the development of disadvantaged groups, and their activities play an essential part in fair trade’s overall role by providing financial services to producers in developing countries, enabling them to buy raw materials, tools and other necessities in a timely manner. These producers in most cases do not have access to mainstream financial services in their own countries - and the current financial crisis means that these producers are now finding it almost impossible to access lines of credit.
This goes hand in hand with KartiMarket’s role as buyer and retailer - utilising credit producers are able to satisfy orders from companies like ourselves who in turn are able to offer these products to final customers whose demand then creates larger orders for suppliers (increasing income for producer families), and again, the need for credit. In fact Shared Interest has assisted some of KartiMarket’s suppliers such as Camari in Ecuador and Mitra Bali in Indonesia, and the fruits of this virtuous cycle can be seen in our online store!
To become a member of Shared Interest, KartiMarket has deposited funds with Shared Interest, pooling funds with other members that will be used to provide the financial services to producers, and we will continue to contribute more funds as our business continues to grow.
Jaya
