Once in a while we find that we need some money for us to do a little bit of this or that. We head out to our relatives for solace and maybe get the amount that we so much need. If the amount is quite high on the other hand, the option that comes to mind is; bank loans. Bank loans have helped out a lot of individuals start off business empires. It is through these loans that many people are able to survive.

Though this is the case, the interest rates for borrowing money are quite high. The reason why many individuals opt for bank loans is due to the fact that they do not have another option which they can use to source for funds. This has led banks to exploit their debtors by imposing high interest rates on the loaned amount. Even though it is the investors who mainly finance the bank, the bank does not usually honour them the way they should. Investors are forced to settle for very low interest rates. The catch in this particular regard is that they will only offer the investor large interest rates, the longer you bank money with them, this actually encourages investors to invest their money for a longer period with the bank. This is just sad; the borrower and the investor lose, but the bank comes out ahead.

Anyone who wants a large sum of money to invest in a business of their choice will be out to find a creditor whose interest rates are low. With lendingclub.com this dream is quickly turning into a reality for many and you can also join the club. How does lendingclub.com do this? The bank in most cases is the link between the investor and the borrower. Since the bank is in the middle of everything it will make sure that it reaps from the trade and the one to bear the brunt in this case is you, the borrower. So what exactly does lendingclub.com do? Is it a bank? These are just but a few questions that are running in your head.

What lendingclub.com does is that it completely does away with the bank. This means that it is only the borrower, and the investor in the deal. This serves an advantage to both parties involved; the investor gets higher returns on the money they lend out and the borrowers get lower rates on personal loans.

Here is how it all works. If you are an investor and would wish to make the best out of this opportunity all that you will need to do is to go to the online site and then choose an account type. You will find various selections of investing accounts and retirement accounts that are designed to suit various investors’ financial goals. The next thing that you need to do is to build your portfolio and invest in notes. A note is the currency that you will use on lendingclub.com. With their trading platform you will also be able to put up your notes for sale at any time. This will give your investment liquidity when needed. You can also buy notes when you are in need.

Let’s move on to the borrower, if you want to borrow a loan, it is easy and fast. What about confidentiality? That too is factored in. All that you have to do for you to request a loan is to log into lendingclub.com and click the loans link on the site. If you are not a member, you will be guided to a borrower registration page. This is where you will fill in all your details for you to be verified and for your creditworthiness to be assessed. With those simple steps, you will be able to apply for a loan.

Lendingclub.com is surely set on giving banks a headache. This means that we will be finding a lot of individuals borrowing money and a lot of investors willing to lend money, all with the help of lendingclub.com. Since the right measures to ensure that both ends of the bargain are met, you can rest easy that there is nothing to worry about. Thanks to lendingclub.com, the borrowers save a lot and at the same time lenders also reap favourably from lending

Related articles

• LendingClub – Peer to Peer loans, bypass the banking for the benefit of everyone (smartideabox.com)
• Peer-to-peer lending: How to borrow from and lend to ordinary people (confused.com)
• Where Are the Best Places To Borrow Money in a Pinch? [Ask Lifehacker] (lifehacker.com)
• LendingClub attracts attention of investors (sfgate.com)

Credit cards are a convenient way to pay for goods or services on the internet. Unfortunately, the use of credit cards online presents a number of risks. First, not everyone on the internet has good intentions. There are spoof sites that masquerade as well known legitimate brands but whose main intention is to harvest credit card information from unsuspecting users.

Second is the risk from hackers who penetrate the defences of ecommerce sites and steal customer credit card information. Once your credit card or bank information is in the wrong hands, you have no alternative but to cancel your card or close your account and order a new card or open a new account.

Mobino is a new online payment system that removes the need for buyers to provide their credit card information when making a purchase. Buyers need only register on Mobino.com once. During registration, the buyer provides their bank details to Mobino as well as their mobile phone number. Mobino.com does not release this information to merchants.

So if Mobino.com does not give merchants this information, how then does the system then work? Transactions are hinged upon a unique token number that is assigned to the merchant’s product. To pay for the product the buyer uses their phone to make a voice call to Mobino. During the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) call, the first prompt will require the buyer to key in the token number as indicated on the merchant’s website.

If the token number provided is correct, the IVR confirms the amount the buyer will be paying for if they choose to proceed. The next prompt is for the buyer to key in their secret PIN code. Once the PIN code is authenticated, the transaction is confirmed and the payment executed. From start to finish, the entire transaction can be completed in a matter of seconds

Mobino’s strength does not only lie in the removal from the equation of buyer credit card information disclosure. There’s more. For instance, because it uses IVR, one does not need to have a smart phone to use it. This aspect in particular creates an opportunity for Mobino to get a foothold in the fast growing emerging economies where smart phones are still out of reach for most of the population but where ordinary phones are widely used.

That said, this is not the first ecommerce payment system that seeks to eliminate the need for exchanging credit card information between buyer and seller. PayPal is probably the best known online payment system that hides a user’s banking information during a transaction. In fact, apart from paying via credit card, PayPal is in many ways considered the de facto online payment standard.

Even though Mobino uses an IVR system as opposed to a completely web based technology like PayPal, Mobino will at some level inevitably have to compete with the well-oiled PayPal juggernaut – a tough proposition.

Related articles

• Smart phones as credit cards: Will Visa finally let Americans start paying for everything by phone? (slate.com)
• Why Credit Cards Are Not the Future of Online Payment (mashable.com)
• Paypal Is About To Get A Bruising From Facebook And Square (techcrunch.com)
• American Express Takes on PayPal With Serve (mashable.com)
• Square eliminates its credit card transaction fee (venturebeat.com)

You want to acquire a property but you can not affort it ?
Or You have some good investing ideas but you require extra funding ?

Sharedspaces came out with a brillant idea : finding co-owners .

Let’s start with co-buyers.

You can now be more ambitious when buying a new home by joining forces with someone else. Sharedspaces gives you the opportunity to afford somewhere bigger, more prestigious and with a higher return on investement.

The idea is dead simple, just like a dating website you write down exactly what you are looking for in order to find your perfect match out of the thousands of registered potential Co-owners. The Process is simple and really aims to connect people with the same vision.

Keep in mind that before being able to acquire the House of your dreams loads of external player and extra costs come within the pictures such as solicitors, surveyors, lenders, brokers and more to pay. And it is just the start of it . Indeed once the home is yours the running costs kick in; bills, mortgage, service charges, repairs, home improvement, insurances, and many more.

Co-buying means spliting every single cost .

In addition , co-buying will help you to make your dreams come true . It is proven, two bedroom flat is often far less than twice the price of a one bedroom property. As a result , you will aspire to a place you could not have considered before cost-sharing.

The next point is : Co-investors .

Investing in property has grown to be a very lucrative hobby .

First of all, co-investing will give you the opportunity to come across other people’s great investing project with great return potentials. On the other hand, if you are the one who has a great investement project, it will help you to team up with co-invester to realize your investments.

Being willing to take higher risks is one of the keys to achieveing massive profit . Being a co-investor means that you are sharing responsability .That is why it will provid you a decision-making support and will help you to take the plunge into an expercience you will have never been able to do on your own .

Last but not least you can even imagine Co-investing with a first time buyer or even with a friend (who will live in the property) . This way you can invest in bricks and mortar , on the same time renting your place, and reducing costs of maintenance .

To sum up , sharedspaces has design a perfect way of sharing cost in order to make an unimaginable project conceivable by working with someone you do not know yet.

Share your ideas , your projects and find your other half to reach success !

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Whether it is for purposes of computing tax returns, preparing yearend accounts or to help you have better grip of personal or business expenses, recording and keeping track of expenditure is important. But considering the sheer number of receipts the average person piles up in a month or year, it is clear that maintaining order is no mean task. It is not unusual for one to spend hours each month organising and adding up receipts.

Plendi.com is changing how people manage receipts by making the process more efficient. Plendi’s process is simple. First, install the Plendi app on your smart phone (the app is available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry). Use your phone to take a photograph of the receipt. The image is then securely transmitted to Plendi.com servers.

The sooner you can take the photo after the receipt is issued the better – the receipt is still in pristine condition and not a crumpled state as is likely to happen after it is handled for a while. Taking the photo early is also important in safeguarding the record just in case the receipt is lost shortly after.

On receiving the digital image, the back office staff at Plendi manually key in the important fields from the receipt and upload the data by the end of the next business day. The data captured includes date, currency, vendor, net amount, VAT and total amount.

All the information can then be accessed on Plendi.com by the client. The records (including the images) can be exported to Excel and PDF files. With Plendi.com, there is no longer need to worry about lost receipts. Plendi.com stores your records for an indefinite time frame for as long as you are subscribed to the service.

This archive can come in handy during a tax audit, external audit, internal audit or a dispute. Remember that tax authorities in several countries including the US, the UK and Ireland accept receipt images as legitimate supporting documentation for tax returns. The digital records ensure accountants have much less to do and save valuable time – they no longer need to sift through, organise and record tons of paperwork.

Plendi.com automatically converts the currency of the receipts to your home currency thus saving its clients the headache of manual conversion of foreign currency-denominated receipts. Using Plendi can see one significantly reduce their tax bill. For instance, one year’s parking receipts can bump a significant chunk off one’s overall tax obligations.

One of the key areas of concern with Plendi.com will be data accuracy. After all, the data is manually keyed in by humans. Plendi do admit they can make mistakes. However, their recommended course of action in the event of an error might not come across as reassuring – that is, users should use the web interface to correct any such errors that are inconsistent with the receipt image. This may be translated to mean that clients are ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the records.

In order not to appear as though they are absolving themselves from blame for typing errors, Plendi.com would probably create a stronger case for the quality of their output if they could indicate their current error rate (as long as it is impressive). For instance, a 99.8% error rate will give users the confidence that errors are the exception and not the norm.

Over the last 10 or 15 years, the term corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained traction worldwide as an integral part of the responsible business’ strategy. However, the growth of CSR has inadvertently created the impression that activities to make the world a better place are difficult or near impossible to monetize.

Of course, nothing could be further from fact – there are numerous business that are solely involved in social activities and are returning a profit from doing so. 33needs.com is an online crowd funding website that connects social entrepreneurs with investors.

33needs.com serves as a platform (the only one of its kind) for ordinary people to invest in social enterprises and reap financial and emotional reward. The emotional reward is in knowing that one has contributed to making a difference somewhere in the world.

Financial reward is in ‘Impact Points’ awarded by 33needs.com that can be redeemed in any one of a network of ‘Impact Partners’ around the world. There are 6 classes of social enterprises that the 33needs.com helps organise funding for.

• Health – Businesses that provide products and services that help people live healthier and longer lives.
• Sustainable food – Enterprises that use sustainable farming and processing practices to make more food available to meet the need of the world’s burgeoning population.
• Opportunity – Businesses that equip men and women with the skills necessary to provide for their households.
• Planet – Entrepreneurs whose goal is to ensure a cleaner world.
• Education – Individuals or institutions that create the environment for more people to access a good education.
• Community – Enterprises that work towards the protection and preservation of unique but endangered cultures.

The social entrepreneur must indicate a specific target amount that they would like to raise. The funds are only released to the entrepreneur if the contributions from investors reach the target amount. If the total amount invested does not reach the target figure, the investors get a full refund of their money.

The rationale for refunding investments when they fall short is to ensure the entrepreneur has all the cash they need to achieve the goals they had outlined. This is good for investors as it reduces the likelihood of failed enterprises or projects.

The accrual purpose for the money will differ for each business. The cash may be for starting up a new business or to expand a going concern. The funds may go towards building a website, increasing inventory, research, marketing etcetera. 33needs.com helps social enterprises address their operational needs so they can focus on delivering their product.

The fact that investors are individuals who are attracted by the cause the social enterprise stands for means the social entrepreneur enjoys support from persons that are passionate about their business. This alone serves as a powerful drive for entrepreneurs to achieve the goals they commit to at the point of sourcing for funding.

While 33needs.com is quickly making a name in the crowd funding arena, its difficult-to-understand and widely-varying reward structure might be an impediment to more investors signing up. However, it has the potential of making headway among persons that would like to make a difference without necessarily expecting anything in return. This is because there is no collateral that the investor can redeem if the social enterprise goes bust.

Today’s world is all about consumption…What we buy, what we do, what we give etc…So basically spending money can more or less explain our daily activities.

Twitter is all about telling everyone what you are doing, and we know how popular it became. But I’ve never been convinced, not enough people can be bothered to actually write down those things. If this could be done automatically evrytime they do something with their creditcard, no effort would be made.

Imagine you go to starbucks buy a coffee, swipe your card, type your pin, and the press ok if you want you’re purchase to be put online!.

You’re friends can keep track of what you are doing. I think it’s a good idea pretty much an upgrade of the services VISA/MASTERCARD offers today.

I would be willing to try. But I would be pissed off to see some of my friends purchases if I can’t aford them ahahah

You want to grab some weed from your pusher before going to poker but you are out of cash? Well… There is an app for that!

Steve already warned us that there would be apps for pretty much everything on his apple phone. We have seen applications allowing you to accept credit card payments thanks to your phone already. However, Square also provides a mini card reader that plugs in the earphone socket and lets you swipe credit cards.

- Investors would not need to face the constraint of realizing a performance that compensates transaction fees, which would attract many investors,

- They would probably be more willing to give up a percentage when they win, provided that they won! They would not loose anything when they loose.

Note: You get transaction fees from purchases and winning positions sells. Therefore, only less than 1/4 of revenues are cancelled (since markets tends to go up) while 1/4 of charges are increased.

The business model is quite simple and it is possible to avoid investment as well. You create partnerships with luxury brands, moreprecisely I guess with luxury stores in a city. On top of that, you offer free delivery. You sell clothes on a website. Once someone orders, you check if the store still has it, you confirm and deliver it. Your benefit is simply the difference between the real price and the price plus interests.

Further more, even if it’s not the case with Rolex, donations to some foundations are tax deductibles.

Now imagine transforming your company’s R&D in foundation. A foundation against some virus for example, if you are active in the pharma industry. Not only are you free from publishing your accounts, but you can also save on tax and convince investors to give you money!

If the final purpose is something positive for humanity, do you think this is reasonable?

So my idea is to create a database of average prices for anything, depending on place and time. This way you could always know if you’re getting screwed or if you’re making a great deal.

This is how it should work: people shall be free to enter data in the database, just like any wiki. Anytime they want, the user can add a price tag to a product or service according to his own experience. The average price is calculated. If you’re over it: you just paid too much. If you’re under it: you made a good deal.

Is your ideal closet too expensive for you?

Then I have the solution for you.

There would be a shop where all the top brands can be found, and instead of paying the full price for a piece of fabric, you would actually be able to pay the price according to the number of days you wear your clothes.

That way you’ll be able to have 2 times more clothes for half the price!

There are many bad payers black lists, shall they come from public official organisms or from private companies like credit cards issuers. But none of them is really efficient: maybe the process to have someone listed is too complicated or the list is not accessible from outside…

Now imagine a full web 2.0 youtube-like user-friendly bad payers list service. The advantages of such a service are not to be proven. The small entrepreneur who got fooled by a bad customer will be happy to rush to the website in order to have him listed. On another hand, anyone who is going to start a consequent work for a customer will be happy to be able to check quickly if someone already complained about him.

The service wouldn’t need much programming, it wouldn’t cost much neither. And it would be so valuable that we could easily charge users a subscription fee.

Finally, in the beginning we could benefit from a pretty nice buzz since I have never heard of such a thing.

So maybe it’s time you pay your bills.