Puddle: To borrow money from friends and / or relatives can undoubtedly lead to complicated rather than very pleasant situations - but many feel that this may be preferable to having to do with banks or money-makers.
They are addressed to them Puddle: a new application/ service, which enables the user to borrow money from his social environment - his social "network" rather than through "traditional" streets (banks, credit cards, etc.).
As indicated in a related article by Wired, the basic principle is easy: the user puts money in a digital "cup" and gets the opportunity to draw on it five times (for example, if he puts 10 dollars, he has a "credit line" up to 50 dollars that he can pull whenever wants). Loan repayments are made in monthly installments of three or six months, with no interest over a standard amount for each month (depending on the size of the loan).
This kind of creation of a 'fund'/'reserve' by a community is nothing new: in fact these systems have existed almost since money was created, and operate as 'interpersonal' banks, where credit is based on trust between of community members. As one of its creators, Skylar Woodward, explains to Wired (the other two are Matt Flannery and Jean-Claude Rodríguez Ferreira Masons), the challenge was to adapt this "offline" system to modern online δεδομένα. Η χρήση του Ίντερνετ για αυτόν τον σκοπό συνεπάγεται πολύ μεγαλύτερες ταχύτητες, ενώ υπάρχει πάντα και ο δισταγμός όσον αφορά στο κατά πόσο μπορεί κάποιος να εμπιστευτεί κάποιον τον οποίο γνωρίζει μόνο μέσω ενός ψηφιακού προφίλ. Για αυτό και ενσωματώθηκαν στην εφαρμογή στοιχεία κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, στα πρότυπα του Facebook and Reddit, with "reward" systems for "good behavior".
Puddle is self-regulating - and based on its designers, the principle on which it is based seems to work, as the service (which has been undergoing testing for two years) has a repayment ratio of 98%.
