In much the same way Uber has disrupted the taxi industry and Airbnb the hotel industry, expect FinTech (financial technology) to start to disrupt the finance industry in 2016.

Expect to hear more about P2P lending, Blockchain and Robo-Advice in 2016.

Think of P2P (peer to peer) lending as you would Uber or Airbnb. It’s simply a market place that allows people who want to borrow money (P2P lending); hail a cab (Uber); or hire a house (Airbnb) to match up with someone who wants to lend money; give a lift; or let their house. For the borrower it can be cheaper than borrowing from a bank and for the lender it can give a greater reward than a simple cash account. However, lending money this way comes with greater risks – how do you chase down someone who won’t pay you back?

At Quantum Financial we’ve done our due diligence on P2P lending and have decided we won’t be recommending our clients become involved at this stage.

To use an Uber or Airbnb analogy, we can’t be sure that the person they give a lift to / lend their home to is going to knife them or trash their home.

So too with a person they P2P lend money to – we can’t be sure the person is going to be a fine upstanding citizen like Christopher Skase or not.