Interview: Jonathan Despres
From Future
Interview with Jonathan Despres
by Neil Robinson. Go to the Interviews.
Social Banking: the vision of a new breed of bank, PRETp2p. My last 3 posts have dealt with the future of lending in the wake of the disaster that's befallen conventional banking. Many - including me - see the damage as irreparable and something new, like social banking will emerge to take its place. It may be that players from well outside of the conventional money supply channel may fill the gap, an example of the new breed of peer to peer (P2P) banks is the French startup, PRETp2p. As a result of my posts, I've had a dialogue with Jonathan Despres, the mastermind behind PRETp2p. Rather than write a long piece of my own, I think we'll see a clearer picture by letting Jon explain the project in his own words. Here is Jon's response to ten questions I put to him. I think you'll agree, it makes fascinating reading.
What is PRETp2p trying to achieve?
PRETp2p is trying to match borrowers and lenders in every French-speaking country. We are a meeting facilitator for people trying to earn money, to profit from a loan, or to get a loan at lower prices than conventional banks, with less risk and more security. We are a true alternative to banks, particularly in the current banking crisis. We also have an ambition to offer more than loans in the future, in fact, we will offer many other financial services.
Who is the target consumer, average age, earnings group, etc.?
We're attracting everybody interested in the peer to peer, person to person money lending concept, people interested in websites, web tools and the Internet generally. Mostly, though I'd say Generation Y (my generation) and people who are exclusively on-line users, frequent on-line users and professional traders in financial markets.
Why did you set it up, had you worked in banking or did you want to use such a service yourself?
I've always been interested in disruptive technologies and p2p lending is one, as is Google, YouTube and nanotechnology. I discovered the concept of P2P Lending with an email from a mailing list, this one actually: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=29332 The guy was interested in offering a way to get money through Prosper for his cryonics group. So I decided to do the same. First for French-speaking Canada and then in France itself.
How did you start, did you get backing originally or after the site was created?
I spoke to three investor relations people, but none of the discussions went anywhere. I realised I needed to do everything and find the money on my own. Currently, the website is free to use, and is paid for by advertising. That way I get more users on board.
What was the reaction of those in finance you spoke to?
The financial people said everyone coming to the site would be those who had exhausted every option to get money, which is not always the case by any means. With our website we have a clear view of our customer's credit history which was always the goal. In general, they said that if people (borrowers) were more credit worthy, they would go to the conventional banks. I think as time moves on we'll have more opportunities and we'll be stronger. For example, we may attract people not interested in regular investments and those who recognise the potential of the Internet. Maybe people who haven't enough money for the regular banks to be interested in.
How quickly did the site grow, are you happy with progress?
Yes, I am very happy with the progress. We started with just two subscriptions per day, now we have 5 to 7 users per day, and we don't see this falling away. From 2000 hits per day, we now have 5000 to 7000, this recently hit 14,000 in one day. This isn't just me saying this, anyone can view the statistics on our web site. It's all public and free. We want to be as transparent as possible.
How has the media responded to you?
We, well I got two requests to do an interview with France 2, the major television channel in France, I said I had to concentrate 100% on my Internet business and declined, but I answered their questions by email. I recognise though that I need someone for public relations/appearance support, because I'm not so comfortable with that aspect yet. I've got someone lined up for that role. He will look after this along with taking care of our future investors for the company, getting new partners and in fact, generally talking to people. That will leave me free to maintain the site, protect the data, design and develop things further.
What marketing have you done?
We have invitation scripts for users, so far this all we've done. But I want to progess things virally, by partnering with several blogs and forums in the french communities and by establishing a link exchange service on our forum, too. We need to plan this carefully, though.
Have you set up a company to run the site?
I have my own holding company, but I plan to setup a new one specifically for PRETp2p. Although I've not yet decided in which country that will be.
What are your plans for the future?
To see the site growing, taking care of my users, looking after my customers for as long as possible, possibly forever, improving the look and feel of the site, getting partners interested in working with the company. And making the project profitable, of course. Right now, we're planning to create some new pages, a simulator for loans with interests, a profile page to fill for the future BETA, later, but much later, we will develop a marketplace for "how to to invest in startups and creating business plans" or to help startups to get funds from venture capitalists and other small investors. We have also the idea to offer our own insurance, but these goals are long term ones. We will wait to see what happens.
