Will social lending need capitalization?

[freder...@gmail.com]

A link on the article in the Economist (http://www.economist.com/
finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8861522) over the latest evolution
in the business of micro-credit. Two interesting trends, microcredit
organizations turn more and more into traditional banks with
capitalization of their entities. Second, microcredit may turn to
become a full business line of traditional retail banks.

Microcredit is certainly far more advanced than social lending is
today and it may be interesting to look at what is happening there to
ponder over the future of social lending. Will social lending
organizations need to get real capitalization and work like
traditional banks with Return on Equity as a metric?

My current thinking is that social lending (and other system we
discuss at BarCampBank) may ultimately work with funds to assure
mitigation. While P2P may be the driver for selection, I wonder if
funding or lending may not use stabilization mechanisms provided by a
mass of money (call it a fund or equity).