Imagining a World Without Banks

National Public Radio has an interesting podcast called “A World Without Banks”. Here’s what they say on their site:

There’s this big idea floating around right now. It sounds crazy and fringey, but it turns out some non-crazy, non-fringey people are into it. The idea is this: let’s get rid of the banks. Don’t make them safer. Don’t make them smaller. Just get rid of them.

The podcast talks about peer-to-peer lending and other new technology-driven possibilities. Sometimes entire industries disappear when technology makes new things possible - think about how many categories of products and services are in danger because of the modern smart phone: the camera, the GPS, the newspaper, the book, the travel agent…

It’s difficult for technology to bring down a strongly entrenched industry. Will health apps allow people to do self-diagnosis and prescriptions? Diagnosis, yes - but the money is in prescriptions, so people won’t be able to self-prescribe, at least not if the medical lobbies can stop them.

Could anything overturn the finance industry? And how would you feel about it if it happened?

It’s just possible… click here. It’s worth a listen.