In 2016, France spent 1.31 billion euros on solidarity investments, thus establishing outstanding solidarity savings to 9.76 billion euros at the end of the year. Solidarity finance is an increasingly popular alternative for savers, who have used the transparency and social impact that traditional banks are struggling to provide. But what do these terms of solidarity finance, solidarity savings, crowdlending mean?
Solidarity finance aims to give back to finance its primary function: the linking of the actors with need of financing with those having the capacity of the financier. The idea is to make his money useful in what he finances, rather than letting sleep sleep in an opaque bank account.
Finansol, an association promoting solidarity finance, defines this type of finance as a link between savers who seek to make sense of their money and companies and associations with strong social and environmental benefits. This link is materialized by the subscription of solidarity savings products to a bank, a mutual, a solidarity company, or on a crowdfunding platform.
Crowdfunding and Crowdlending
crowdfunding If the crowdfunding principle is now known to everyone, crowdlending is a little less so. Can be translated as “crowdready”, the crowdlending has a legal framework in France since 2014. The principle is simple: allow individuals to finance projects through financing on the principle of the bank loan (with or without interest rate). So we go from the matching gift of crowdfunding to the loan-interest crowdlending.
In other words, the individual plays the role of the bank to finance projects or companies!
Crowdlending can also help finance impact projects, which has made a particularly virtuous savings product. It is first of all a surplus of freedom: lenders can control their savings and be alone projects financed by this money. The transparency of the platform and the traceability of the money lent are the keystones of this system. Crowdlending also makes it possible to diversify savings by supplementing traditional savings products with solidarity savings. If the loan is paid, it is also more affordable than conventional savings and does not bother with management fees. Above all, this loan is supportive: it supports innovation, development, education, social integration, environment, culture, etc.
Several specialized libraries raise funds every day for entrepreneurs who change the world. At Solylend, our ambition is to act for access to energy, digital, water or education projects in developing countries. The idea is to unite a community of savers who want to become Savers: by supporting innovative projects whose impact is real and measurable, they can contribute to improving living conditions in thousands of people.
Our flagship project, Moon, powered by Sunna Design, is an innovative and connected solar kit that will illuminate 500 Senegalese homes, and soon all of Africa!
Nicolas Pereira: “Our goal is, on the one hand, to help people make their savings useful and on the other hand to help those who need it the most. Solidarity can also work like this. We make sure that the projects we accept are as qualitative as possible and that they are the poorest, especially in developing countries. “
