Micropayment, microloan banks: banking 2.0?

Update: Kiva has released an API. Think of it, developers will be able to use Kiva data to build rich peer-to-peer microloan apps.

Will you soon be doing your banking, lending and borrowing through a Kiva, Grameen and United Prosperity instead of a Chase, Citi or Bank of America? Before you pile in and tell me why not, consider this.

The U.S. and worldwide banking system is faltering and begging for handouts due to a recent history of greed, excess and the inability to tell a good loan from a total scam. 

What I'd call the social conscience lenders such as Kiva and Grameen have shown that they can make microloans of around  $100 to some of the poorest people on earth and get about a 99 percent repayment rate. Grameen has recently talked about developing a micro loan program in the United States with North Carolina as a possible first stop. 

So those micro lenders have figured out how to leverage technology and utilize the web, social networks and business intelligence to create what I'm sure would have been considered impossible by all those MBA investment bankers on Wall Street: creating a loan business for those with no credit ratings, at tiny amounts in third-world countries. 

Now, let's turn back to the U.S. and other so-called advanced banking systems. Were those systems able to calculate risk? Near as I can tell, those banks weren't even able to figure out where a lot of the loans from the sub-prime mortgage industry were located. Are those sophisticated banks smart at using social networks? Only if you define social networks as one more credit card offer that flashes, jumps or wiggles across your browser. And finally in these financially tough times when people are looking for micro instead of macro loans, is the U.S. banking industry geared towards creating, administering and using business intelligence for loan creation and risk assessment? No, no and no. Aside from redoing their offices in high style, I don't think banks are doing much of anything. 

While it may not be the Kiva or Grameen that becomes your next home town bank, I think they are pointing the way to banking 2.0. Just as Craigslist is replacing classified ads and Amazon upstaged traditional book publishing, the next winners in the banking industry are just being created now using technology to revolutionize a stodgy industry.

Should the government be pouring money into banks that operate under a last century model or would that money be better off spent on helping jumpstart the next wave of banking innovation? You tell me.