I was invited to speak at World Council for Credit Unions this week on how technology is enabling a new generation of person-to –person and crowd–driven funding, lending, currency and investment services that will decentralize and democratize finance, money and banking. Think: Funding Circle, Bitcoin, Lending Club, Kickstarter, IndieGogo, Seedrs, CircleUp, GoFundMe, CurrencyFair, Transferwise, Zopa, MPesa and hundreds more.
It is a subject I am passionate about. How can we shift banking back to being a trusted pillar of society? How can we create monetary systems where the real benefits flow back to individuals, not the big financial mega stores? How can we create financial access to underserved communities?
An interesting challenge for credit unions is the values that have typically differentiated them from traditional banks -empowerment, transparency, access and community – are at the core of many new platforms and services emerging. So maintaining relevance and growth, particularly with younger members is a pressing challenge.
I was overwhelmed by the audience response (thank you WCUC delegates!). Here are some of the key points I covered as well as resources to address many of the questions asked:
Four Disruption Drivers
I first identified the four root causes of disruption that are transforming different industries.
Financial services are affected by all of the drivers and that is why I put the sector at the highest risk of disruption by the collaborative economy.
- It is rife with middlemen and has too many retail branches—both
August 02, 2014
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