A short, but stimulating seminar last night hosted by NESTA on P2P finance provoked some fresh thoughts on how to make sense of the experience of being ‘on zopa’. I think that the overall aim of the blog www.webank.org.uk is valid in trying to balance the technological debate (be it business models or platforms) with some insights into the experience of being a lender or borrower on a p2p network.
While feeling a little bit like a Labour back bencher (with my obvious loyalties to the zopa approach) asking a question, it was driven by the good intentions or nagging doubt that there is still something missing in the external analyses of p2p finance.
The clue is in the language. Money is not just finance. Or rather finance does not have a monopoly on the meaning of money. Banks create a particular form of money (credit essentially) which is important for making our economy go round, but this shouldn’t fool us into thinking this is the only meaning of money that has currency in everyday life.
As mentioned below, Athenians differentiated between eranos loans whose ‘interest’ was contained in a potential future reciprocation by the recipient of the loan (with interest – as conforms with Mauss’s analysis of gifting) as opposed to lending for ‘profit’ where interest replaced the reciprocal obligation between strangers (as strangers were unlikely to do a favour in return).
“Interest” on zopa is a hybrid between the impersonal and the personal (for a great pamphlet on this read Keith Hart’s "The Hitman’s Dilemma") between the idea of profit and gifting. As such, my money invested (and borrowed) from zopa has a different meaning and value to my deposits in egg and I have a different motivation in my desire to make a return.
A further thought which I want to develop - the idea of the 'sustainable economy'. The growth of ‘zopa’ is based on the size of the community (which actually increases its sustainability in my view) rather than the growth of profit (which ultimately would not be sustainable and would create a market correction…..).
Money (as profit) is not the only good … and therefore not the only justification for my actions as an individual.
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