Internet Banking: Coming Soon
I’ve been following the spread of microfinance for a while and have been getting involved with Kiva which has been a great experience. I have also noted the rise of social lending businesses such as Zopa, Prosper and even Facebook. Jason has written a good piece on the rise of new forms of financing.
What interest me further is whether all finance can move to a P2P platform and seriously eat into the major lending markets currently controlled by the commercial banks.
I think it could do. This crosses the web with money and complimentary currencies.
Remember that anyone can create “money” if they really want, it just can’t be in the form of bank notes issued by the Reserve Bank. Commercial banks create bank loans by a simple bookkeeping entry. Only 2% of the money supply in NZ is in the form of notes and coin so banks don’t actually hold any money other than a bit of cash.
My point is that P2P finance could take off in a very big way once we get the hang of it. My guess is that the firms currently involved don’t realise how big this could be.
Expect the central banks to cast their beady eyes over these operations once they get a roll on. For now it’s just some web bizness but this feels like 1694 all over again.
Tags: bank of england, banking, central banks, debt, economics, future, interest free banking, internet, microfinance, money, money reform, p2p, reserve bank of new zealand, Uncategorized, web 2.0
June 28th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Readers might like tio have a look at http://www.prometheus.co.nz/noflash/index.html called Banking with Heart
An ethical finance fund targetting some great projects eg. these
*Rudolf Steiner School Kapiti
*Ceres Enterprises
*The Long Creek Company
*Weleda New Zealand
*Uni-Dry
*Seven Dwarfs
early childhood care provides a warm, safe and homely environment for young children who need a second home.
*Torea Gallery and Studios
*Bio-Grain
*Refugee loans
*Solahart
July 18th, 2007 at 4:01 am
Another company worth looking at is NZ grown and based in Auckland. It;s called Doshmob (name to be changed!) and is looking to build a P2P lending system here.
They have a blog at http://www.doshmob.co.nz and I will be following their progress with interest.
January 4th, 2008 at 3:52 am
[…] P2P lending sector is growing all the time with the main companies starting to increase custom and size. The rise of P2P lending is helping bring money and its nature […]