Lendwithcare Review 2026

What it is

Lendwithcare is a charity lending site run since 2010 by CARE International UK, a registered UK aid charity. You lend from £15 to small-business owners in low-income countries, such as farmers and shopkeepers, through local microfinance institutions. You get no interest, ever. At best you get your own money back, so you can lend it again, withdraw it or give it away. It is giving with a good chance of getting the money back, not saving or investing.

How it works

You pick an entrepreneur on the site and lend from £15. Your money is pooled with other lenders' money in an account in CARE's name, lent in US dollars to the local microfinance partner, and usually converted into local currency. In most cases the partner has already made the loan before it appears on the site, so your money refills the partner's funds. Repayments come back to your account over about 12 months, mostly monthly. If a loan is not fully funded within about two months, your money returns to your account.

What you get back: when the borrower repays, you get your money back without interest, minus any currency losses. Currency losses are taken from your repayments, while currency gains are kept by CARE, and repayments are rounded down to the penny. What happens on default: if the borrower or the whole partner institution cannot repay, you lose the missing repayments. There is no reserve fund, guarantee or insurance. CARE may reschedule loans after events such as droughts or floods.

Who can raise money

Small-business owners in low-income countries, chosen and lent to by local microfinance partners. Lendwithcare picks the partners against a published checklist, including at least three years of operation, three years of audited accounts, no more than 10% of their loans more than 30 days late, and visits on site. It works with more than 20 partners in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the West Bank. In Pakistan all loans are interest-free for the borrower as well.

Fees

Lenders pay no fee to join, lend or withdraw. Withdrawals go through PayPal and take 7 to 10 working days. At checkout you are asked for a voluntary donation on top of your loan, suggested at 15%, which pays for running the site; you can set it to zero. If your account is not used for 12 months, your balance is turned into a donation to CARE after warning emails.

What reaches the project

All of your loan goes to the microfinance partner; the site takes no cut. Your loan is 0% for you, but not for the borrower: local partners charge borrowers interest of 0% to 7% a month, on average about 2% a month (as published in August 2026), to cover the cost of making very small loans.

Track record

The site says more than £60 million has been lent to over 230,000 entrepreneurs since 2010, from a community of over 100,000 lenders (October 2026). The only figure on losses is a statement that defaults are "less than 2%". That page was updated on 28 September 2026; in August 2026 it said "less than 1%". The basis of the figure is not explained, and no figure is published for currency losses. There is no statistics page. Its public review score was 4.3 out of 5 from 84 reviews in August 2026.

Status and regulation

Operating normally as of 30 October 2026. Lendwithcare is a programme of CARE International UK (registered charity 292506, company 01911651), regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales and registered with the Fundraising Regulator. It is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, so there is no compensation scheme and no financial ombudsman for lenders. Card and Apple Pay payments go through Stripe and top-ups and withdrawals through PayPal; the money itself is held in a pooled account in CARE's own name.

Our view

We do not rate Lendwithcare for return or risk. The return is 0% by design: it is charitable lending, not investing. For a lender, two facts matter. In the usual case you get your money back without interest, but currency losses fall on you while currency gains go to the charity. And if a borrower or partner fails, the loss is yours: there is no guarantee, and the only published loss figure, "defaults under 2%", rose from "under 1%" in September 2026.