Applying the Ebay principle to banking ?

Erwan, a reader of my blog, pings me to discover the new Zopa startup, presenting itself as "the first lending and borrowing exchange". Interesting, they put people who want to lend in touch with creditworthy people who want to borrow, mutualize the risk, and take a 1% commission.

I don't know the management (or anybody at Zopa) who has quite an impressive background. It looks like it was started by the team who launched Egg.

Interesting concept, the interesting part is to see if they will be successful in getting people lend money to others on the Internet. I guess with reputation and risk calculation it may work.

I am not sure how legal it is in many countries, I wonder about France.

Do you think it will work ? Would you lend or borrow money from Zopa ?