Coming to a bank near you: Person-to-Person lending

Lending money to kids away at college or family members in need just got a little easier.

Today Fiserv, a global provider of financial technology services, announced plans for a new Person-to-Person, or P2P service that will enable the quick transfer of funds between individuals.

This service will be made available to the more than 3,100 financial institutions in the Fiserv network.

According to a Fiserv survey conducted in June 2009, demand for this service is substantial. Seventy percent of the survey's respondents expressed interest in this type of service, with three out of four saying they'd prefer to have access to P2P at their own financial institutions rather an outside source such as Lending Club and 83% said it's important for money to be deposited directly into a recipient's bank account, as opposed to being funneled through a third party system.