Quickfire: MicroPlace

A couple of weeks ago, I had one of my brainwaves (which have been becoming infrequent these days, I might add). I thought about the viability of a P2P finance e-commerce venture; the logic was to create an eBay-like website where ordinary individuals could lend money to each other, with lenders bidding to offer the most favourable interest rates. See, payments could be made and received through services such as PayPal and Google Checkout, and, and, and people could borrow any amount for any length of time, and, and, and they would no longer have to be held to ransome by their banks, and, and, and there would be world peace...

Just as my eyes were lighting up with glee at my newfound goldmine, it crossed my mind that eBay and Google would not be so keen to lend their payment infrastructure to the venture when they could set it up themselves and keep all the profits.

Well, I was right! I just read a BBC News report about MicroPlace, an eBay company that facilitates microfinance investments from everyday investors to the world's working poor. The e-commerce website acts as a broker-dealer linking investors to microfinance organisations across the world, with investments made through PayPal or a regular bank account. eBay are not keeping the profits though; they will be using it to fund their socially beneficial activities. Who says business is all about shareholder value, eh?

I guess my brainwave was not just vapour afterall. Wonder if Google would be willing to play ball...