With the world - and South Africa - in the grip of a global recession, the time was ripe for a bold new business model that would reinvent the way individuals lend and borrow. Backed by solid research, it was clear that there was a strong causal link between private sector credit offerings and increased economic activity. Simply put, bringing microfunding within reach of ordinary South Africans led to an exponential burst in economic productivity. In fact, it could be argued that without the robust growth in unsecured lending since the end of the 2008 / 2009 recession, the South African economy would have fared far worse than it did.