[extropy-chat] peer 2 peer finance

[Rik van Riel]

Fun project for the minarchists among us.  It seems to promote
individual accountability and maybe reduce the temptation to
"take something from the commons"...

The companies are http://www.prosper.com/ and http://www.zopa.com/


 Peer-To-Peer Finance Connects Borrowers And Lenders

Peer-to-peer finance sounds like a concept born to be ridiculed. Finance 
demands oversight and networking through peers rather than a central 
authority, suggests a fundamental rejection of institutional scrutiny.

Call it a cautious rebellion. In February, Prosper opened what it calls 
"America's first people-to-people lending marketplace." It's a site that 
helps users borrow and lend money among themselves without the involvement 
of banks. Though the company says it hasn't been around long enough to 
disclose its user base, it claims to host over 1,000 active loan listings 
and 800 active groups.

...

http://informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=187203312

-- 
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are,
by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan