Banking Review

Web 2.0 for financial services podcast

Last month I sat down with HotHouse founder Simon van Wyk to discuss the issues and opportunities presented by web 2.0 for the financial services industry.

The podcast can be downloaded from the HotHouse Noise blog.

This 20 minute chat includes our thoughts on which web 2.0 technologies will be embraced by banks, and which are likley to be left untapped. My money is on sites like Wesabe that will make it easier for banks to understand how their customers manage their finances.

We also discuss the rapid development of peer-to-peer lending and how the industry is likely to respond.

Simon thinks it will take a start-up with deep pockets to succeed with a local peer-to-peer lending proposition. I think we could see a community oriented institution act as a facilitator of peer-to-peer lending. The recipe for success would require partnering to combine a strong consumer brand, credit code compliant back end and an easy to use interface. Challenging, but not impossible!