Disinter-mediate the intermediary
The usual stuff - cut out the middle man. Been there, done that (at least if you ever bought a Dell computer). What about banks?
Zopa is exactly that. A place where people can lend and borrow money. If you lend money, it get’s split up into a number of different “money-parcels” and as a borrower, you get your money from 50 different lenders. That way, risk is spread to a very acceptable level. The lender specifies the interest rate, the borrower decides if he wants to borrow it to those conditions.
All in all, this seems very well thought out. Only available in the UK (at the moment?), otherwise I would have tried it out immediately.