I have studied the Tala's website for a while to see if there will be more information available. I couldn't find more than the article itself provides. If nothing more, I concluded that an interest rate (APR) however masked as service fee is somewhere between 60 to 85% for every loan provided. Here in the Czech Republic, such predatory usury would be an illegal activity. Courts of justice in disputes tolerate interests up to around 20%. No wonder Tala operates in countries like Kenya, the Philippines, India,… where there is no legislation regulating usury. I would welcome in the article some independent talk to a customer of Tala so see his story about how his life has been changed for better using such a microloan.

However, the article was about journaling and presenting Shivani Siroya as “transformer of the lending market in developing countries”. My impression is that it is a marketing article written by the PR department to promo Tala services, only not marked as such. It is a pity. It could be a nice case study otherwise. It is nice to have an idea to change the world, democratize some activities like providing microloans and to support entrepreneurship. I only somehow see that something went wrong if the product itself might providing more harm than benefits.

I have found an interesting mention of Shivani being a former UBS employee. Does that mean it is a toxic environment of an international bank that encourages somebody to ideate usury as a microloan solution for underserved markets? It seems like an ethical issue in culture. I am surprised.