Lend a hand: Peer to peer banking?

Image: Check Writing by carbonNYC

With the introduction of Napster some years ago, peer-to-peer quickly became a buzzword that challenged the typical distribution model for music first, and for movies & TV shows later. Nowadays, talk about torrent downloads and online music services is an accepted part of our digital landscape. Some visionaries have even started producing their own web-tv shows and distributing them using peer-to-peer technology (link).

There are now other industries that are to be challenged by the peer-to-peer business model; of those, the most unlikely and surprising is our traditional and well-established banking system. According to an article in Tripwire (link), research from Gartner indicates that peer-to-peer online money lending networks are expected to grab 10% of the worldwide lending market by 2,010. I am not sure I would like to lend thousands of dollars to an individual directly, unless there is an intermediary that is willing to manage and collect on bad debts on my and other lenders’ behalf. But stranger things have happened before.