Monthly Archives: April 2007

CommunityLend

I find the explosion of peer to peer lending very interesting. Avoid the bank, lend money to someone who needs it – you get a better rate on your investment than a bank would give you, they get a better rate on a loan than a bank would give them. It’s a win-win. As long as no one defaults.

I love the openness of it, the eBay quality. We buy and sell things for money, why not just buy and sell money itself? Clearly a reputation mechanism is key to this working.

So if we go five years in the future, will anyone remember this, or will the banks be screaming mercy? Is this to the banks what Napster was to the recording industry? Is this a classic case of a spider battling a starfish. I look forward to finding out.

If I was a betting man, I’d say that this will have a significant impact on banking, not a life or death impact, but enough that banks and credit unions will notice and either try to buy some of these guys up or start their own.

Time will tell if I’m right. What do you think?

CommunityLend.

A new direction

I have recently been asked why I don’t give my opinion about web 2.0, social marketing, banking, etc on my blog. Why I limit it to a more frivolous link blog. I was surprised by the question: lots of people are talking social web and FIs. My favourites include:

Social Signal
Open Source CU
Net Banker
NextCU

But then it occured to me, all of those are written by people outside of an FI. They’re written by supporters, vendors, partners, but not insiders. So I’m branching out and will start blogging more about trends I’m seeing, things I’m focusing on, ideas percolating under the surface. I hope I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes at these other fine companies and blogs. I admire and respect all of them, and merely am attempting to join their online conversation.

I also hope I won’t upset anyone at Vancity. I love the company and my job, and will strive to merely represent how we do business without giving away any trade secrets, inside information or anything else. I’m going to assume I have that freedom unless I’m told otherwise. Sara, I’ll wait for your call…

Now the question is, am I doing this for myself only, or is anyone else listening.

Thanks,
Wm