[LINK] P2P banking? Ditch the bank – borrow from the crowd

[Fernando Cassia]

On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 06:59, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
>
> This kind of "citizen banking" should be reshaping the business of borrowing and lending, and shaking the foundations of the financial industry in a way no amount of Occupy Wall Street protesting could accomplish.

I this idea of people loaning to other people predates the "interweb"
and the "intertubes", to paraphrase my colleague Nick Farrell. ;-)

How were them called? Oh yes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan_shark

The biggest hold up, IMHO, even in the event of the lack of physical
violence to collect due payments, is that the chances of collecting
payments decrease the farther the lender is from the borrower.

Plus, the lender has no way to know if the borrower is who he claims
to be -even if the person exists- (I could be Vladimir Putin who
created a Latin American identity, for all you know). [insert evil
laugh here]

I assume it could work on a strictly _LOCAL_ basis (ie people from the
same neighbourhood lending to neighbours). But then, closeness would
lead to... what was it called? Oh yes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan_shark

;-)
FC