With this headline and the accompanying description, yet another step in the evolution of social lending takes place.  This is a good thing.  Certainly we are undergoing a period of extreme transition and pressure to develop the right model within social lending, but the outcomes are beginning to offer some clues to the future, and some clarity. Fynanz halts p2p lending; markets student loan platform to credit unions We have opened up our platform to financial institutions that wish to establish a student loan program The matter of regulation of the industry is now certain, at least in North America, … Continue reading One way innovation will occur in banking

John Plender writes an interesting piece discussing the possibility that banks cannot innovate without dramatically increasing risk, and loss. Galbraith is quoted as relating all banking innovation to role of debt. Originative Sin  – the future of banking | Financial Times Sceptics highlight obvious costs. Galbraith, in A Short History Of Financial Euphoria (source of the earlier quotation) emphasised the pervasive role of debt: “All financial innovation involves, in one form or another, the creation of debt secured in greater or lesser adequacy by real assets . . . All crises have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, … Continue reading Financial innovation and the role of debt

An interesting bit of research on virtual worlds and using them to model the real world.  Real people were using virtual money bought with real money to participate in a banking scenario within Second Life.  The outcome was a banking crisis that could have offerred lessons to the real world. Click through to msnbc for their research and analysis. Second Life bank crash foretold financial crisis | msnbc The end came when panicked investors began withdrawing their virtual money, known as Linden dollars in the game and exchangeable for U.S. dollars at a rate of roughly 250 Linden dollars to … Continue reading Second Life | can it be a test bed for real life?

Very cool new feature from Mint.  Few banks have done this, and Clairmail offer this service, but with Mint customers can get it for any bank. Text Mint to See if You’ve Been Naughty or Nice Starting today, text BAL or BALANCE to MyMint (696-468) from any checkout line in America and we’ll send you the balances in all of the checking, savings and investment accounts you track in your Mint account.  Just think of it, no more embarrassing “your credit card has been declined” moments. This typifies the disruptive forces at play and during these tough times, I would … Continue reading Text Mint.com to retrieve account balances

RBC continue to promote small incremental change online that flies in the face of traditional banks, and certainly more than we expect from the largest bank of any country. Check it out here.  What better way to learn and understand the Internet environment. Online Banking Rating and Reviews To my knowledge only Bank of America have dabbled in this kind of thing to date, and no bank in Canada. Continue reading RBC continue to do small things well