Lend to help those in need.
Whilst earning a fair return.
Feel great about your loan as you change a life for the better.
Sapling is a market-led solution to solving poverty.
We believe lenders should make a fair return.
To date Sapling loans have had 0% defaults.
Loans are protected by a tranche of first loss capital.
Fully on-chain lending to SMEs through community-run, liquid lending pools on Ethereum Layer 2s. Enables anyone
(individual, institution, community, syndicate, family, or group of friends) to provide credit to SME borrowers
without running a full-stack banking operation.
Great returns for Lenders, collateralized with real world assets
In rural Africa, local businesses can borrow from local Money Lenders and Banks at 10-20% per month, under strict
terms and only if they have eligible collateral. Sapling’s first Lending Pool lends at 5% a month, half the price
of other options. The community Pool Manager puts first loss capital into the pool, makes lending decisions,
conducts underwriting and takes collateral (mainly land). Lenders are offered a projected APY of 25-30% with the
multiple protections of the Pool Manager’s interest spread, first loss capital and Borrower collateral.
According to the data for the largest 41 countries collated by Bank for Internal Bank Settlements (BIC)
the international SME lending market size is approximately $14 trillion.
$5.2 trillion a year
Developing nations unmet SME debt requirements
The IFC and the SME Finance Forum found that 65 million enterprises, or 40 percent of formal micro,
small
and medium enterprises (MSME) in developing countries, have an unmet finance need of $5.2 trillion a
year.
525x
The growth of lending in Defi is explosive
The two main lending protocols, Compound and Aave have grown from practically zero to billions in loans
in the last two years. From June 2020 to June 2022 Aave grew from $15m to $16bn in loans and Compound
from $25m to $5bn in loans.
SMEs — powering global growth & job creation
Small and medium size enterprises are the world’s growth engine – helping SMEs to grow means
providing opportunity to a significant proportion of the world’s population.
40% of GDP in emerging economies and 7 out of 10 jobs in those economies are created by SMEs.
Globally SMEs power 50-70% of employment and are also a driver of innovation and socio-economic
change; women lead up to one third of all businesses.
Pool Managers provide first loss capital, make borrower vetting & lending pool decisions
Borrowers borrow on-chain from the lending pool and provide collateral
Lenders add funds into the lending pool
Current Defi Limitations
Multiple intermediaries decrease efficiency and raise costs to borrowers
The SME borrower is not on-chain, not transparent
Pool liquidity limitations
Advantages of Sapling
The SME borrower is on-chain, borrower performance is transparent
Even the smallest borrower with any mobile phone can access capital
Pool Managers create efficiency, provide local knowledge to improve loan quality
Small pool liquidity
Scalability with Pool Managers
Saplings Key Innovations
On-chain lending collateralized with real world assets
Sapling is the next step in the Web3 lending evolution creating permissionless pools of capital and
bringing SME lending fully on-chain, from Lender direct to SME Borrower via trusted Pool Managers,
making it cheaper and more efficient for all parties.
Borderless lending
Sapling will democratise lending and in doing so enable more SMEs to access capital. Subject to identity
verification (KYB and KYC) any business, syndicate, charitable entity or non-governmental institution will
be able to create an on-chain capital pool to lend to SMEs anywhere in the world.
Community-powered
Sapling incentivises and harnesses the power of blockchain communities to create a global network of people
who are focussed on helping SMEs get access to the credit they need. We see an empowered community, owning
and directing the protocol, as the quickest way to have the most significant global impact.
Trust-based through incentives
Successful lending is based on relationships and trust; Sapling offers a platform where trust can be built
and positive behaviours are incentivised. Pool Managers will be incentivised to foster meaningful
relationships with Borrowers and Borrowers will be able to build an onchain, public credit profile enabling
them to obtain better loan pricing.
Get involved
If you’re interested in learning more and getting involved before our launch, join our
Discord, get our
newsletter and follow
us on Twitter.