The three big alternative finance 'disrupters'

Forget bitcoins – these three alternative finance trends will reward early-mover investors, says David C Stevenson.

Alternative finance is the hot new thing. And as is always the case with hot new things, investors are desperately looking for the new, new thing the next big disrupter. But I'd ignore all the talk of marrying cryptocurrencies to peer-to-peer banking systems. I'd look instead at three simple concepts: lending to students; lending working capital to businesses; and the rise of secondary markets for private equity.

Student loans

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David C. Stevenson
Contributor

David Stevenson has been writing the Financial Times Adventurous Investor column for nearly 15 years and is also a regular columnist for Citywire. He writes his own widely read Adventurous Investor SubStack newsletter at davidstevenson.substack.com

David has also had a successful career as a media entrepreneur setting up the big European fintech news and event outfit www.altfi.com as well as www.etfstream.com in the asset management space. 

Before that, he was a founding partner in the Rocket Science Group, a successful corporate comms business. 

David has also written a number of books on investing, funds, ETFs, and stock picking and is currently a non-executive director on a number of stockmarket-listed funds including Gresham House Energy Storage and the Aurora Investment Trust. 

In what remains of his spare time he is a presiding justice on the Southampton magistrates bench.