First, credit unions could offer members a peer-focused platform that helps them fund local community and charitable projects that the credit union also supports, Geobey proposed.

"When a credit union involves mem­bers and the broader community directly in its decision making, the role of the member's voice is further highlighted," Geobey wrote. "Additionally, as credit unions become increasingly sophisti­cated in the use of 'big data' and retail experience design, the information members and people from the broader community provide as part of a crowdfunding-enhanced com­munity development strategy can be rolled into these analytics. This can help credit unions identify new member recruitment channels and facilitate the design of new products and services, particularly impact investing products and new services for social enterprises, nonprofits and startup coops,' he added.

Geobey outlined how the Saskatchewan, Canada-based Affinity Credit Union reached out to its community partners and members to create a crowdfunding and peer-based funding contest to obtain financing for three start-up cooperatives: A bike shop, food co-op and solar power co-op.

"The community benefited from the attention and support given to critical community issues, the three finalists benefited from increased awareness and development, and Affinity Credit Union was able to reaffirm its role as a progressive community leader and tap into a young, value-aligned, tech-savvy target market," Geobey wrote.

Second, as part of the consumer lending area, Geobey suggested a peer-to-peer approach might provide an important and lower-cost way of helping members get out of higher-priced predatory or exploitive loans and into more reasonably priced loans backed by the credit union. Geobey reported, for example, that 75% of leading peer-to-peer lender Lending Club's loans had been taken out by consumers looking to refinance higher-priced debt.

Third, in the small business loan area, Geobey wrote peer-to-peer lending had been among the approaches Canadian credit unions used to take a large share of their small business lending market.

Canadian credit unions accounted for 17.4% of the country's entire small- and medium-sized business loan market, Geobey reported.

He also pointed out that in the U.K.'s mature mar­ket, borrowers access online peer-to-peer loans more for better service and faster speeds than for lower interest rates. Business borrowers liked peer-to-peer loans because of their speed, ease of use, faster decisions, greater transparency and better service.