The internet culture of openness and sharing is promoting massive changes for businesses of all sizes, as the continuing upsurge in businesses aiming to develop both our social media knowledge and use will easily confirm. But the gaps which have been bridged in one way by new basic communication mediums are now developing into fully fledged by-passes in others and not least of all through the proliferation of peer-to-peer lending sites such as Funding Circle.

When taking my first real plunge as a start-up with a solid distribution contract 8 years ago, I would have leapt at the chance to obtain £250K unsecured lending from a range of private investors. Instead, I had no option but to give a charge against the equity on my home to a high street retail bank. I’m sure that many who have driven the development of an SME whilst being the sole bread-winner at home will relate to the experience of having your partner crying as you call in at your solicitors to complete the paperwork.

But business is inherently risky, and that’s why not everyone does it – or receives the benefits that come with it. Banks however, look very much like they have become ‘penny wise and pound foolish’ when it comes to business vs corporate lending and you won’t have to dig far in to the realms of the recent Banking Crisis and the current Eurozone debacle to see where the big money has been going.

In the past, decisions on lending were actually made by a branch manager at the local bank, who wouldn’t have to talk to a faceless lending ‘specialist’ on the phone or enter all the relevant data onto a network to see if your sweat-soaked business plans were credit worthy, because they took the time to know a client and could see where real risk would lie. I can honestly remember the reverence that the ‘bank manager’ was given when I was a child – not unlike that of a GP or a Dentist. And Oh… how the times have changed.

I would guess that I am far from being alone in having sat with a Business Relationship Manager to talk through the acorns of an idea to see if the will was there to provide funds, before taking a nod away with meto go and commit many further hours of work to creating a written business plan, to then have it quashed in moments when it travels further up the chain by someone or something which basically has nothing more in mind than having one’s cake and then eating it. Put bluntly, it looks very much like interest, security and surety are the 3 requirements of high street retail business banking to small and new business today, and any more than  2 such caveats are not only unrealistic, they are wholly unreasonable.

Not one moment too soon, peer-to-peer lending has arrived, giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to put great business ideas to open-minded lenders who are able to listen to the thought and actually experience the passion behind an idea, and then make an emotional evaluation of the weaknesses and strengths of that concept or perhaps just a plan for expansion, before deciding whether they want to make a similar leap of faith. Even the Government has been caught on-the-hoof with this growing concept pledging no less than £100 Million to support this type of borrowing.

The irony is that for those ‘peers’ choosing to lend and perhaps spread £100K in £5K chunks across 20 different projects, they are spreading their risk widely after making a proper evaluation of all the lending AND receiving a good level of interest too. Banks would perhaps do well to bear this in mind as they go chasing the sure-thing of that golden egg dropping into the basket which comes from a hen with a great set of teeth…