PUBLISHED: 20 SEP 2014 04:14:45 | UPDATED: 23 SEP 2014 00:05:25

FINANCIAL REVIEW- KAREN MALEY

Are the country’s big banks about to undergo the same disruption that has roiled the print media industry in recent years?

That’s the question posed by Gavekal analyst Paul Jeffery in a research piece published this month.

He points out that, just as Google’s initial public offering in 2004 transformed how advertising and marketing dollars were spent in the following decade, “there are good reasons to think that this year’s planned IPO by Lending Club, the world’s largest online peer-to-peer (P2P) lender, may similarly shape the views of investors towards the business of credit intermediation”.