Hundreds of years ago as people started to move their money into vaults with the local blacksmith/goldsmith and take receipt for the precious metals they left on deposit, the banks began to form.
Almost as soon as they started to form, the politics of money began to change and evolve very rapidly in lock step with the ever increasingly dynamic economy.
Over the last 60 years banking has evolved at an even much faster pace. WWII made the entire world realize that banking was definitely a global process. FDR received a rude awakening when Pearl Harbor was bombed and shortly there after a task force was established to figure out how to freeze Japanese banking assets.
The following decades of the cold war saw electronic funds transfers, credit cards, PayPal even mobil electronic payments are moving into the transactional systems.
But what if we didn't need a bank?
Today, we store our money safely in a bank, and the bank uses our capital to make loans on it, paying us a pittance of a return.
What would the social dynamic be like if technology made it possible for people to lend directly to each other again?
Do you think Americans or people from any country would pay closer attention to their finances and their savings if they were making those loans directly, using the electronic safety of what is essentially a virtual vault for our money.
A company called Zopa has started to offer just such a service. They allow people to make online loans to other people.
A slightly related trend that is much less low tech was started in the late 1990's. The concept was one of establishing micro loans to entrepreneurs in impoverished areas or countries. The person that implemented that idea won a Nobel Peace Prize this year.
So what might happen if people could lend directly to each other? Could you do better social justice and receive a better return than your bank provides?
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