The money network: Why crowdfunding threatens traditional bank lending

In December 2011, the day after 523 eurozone banks borrowed €490 billion from the European Central Bank, Chris Riley went to ask his UK bank for a £2,000 ($3,200) loan. The interest rate that his bank wanted to charge him? A staggering 24%.

Riley, a film director who had worked on several science documentaries for the BBC, had produced his own documentary, First Orbit. Working with the European Space Agency, First Orbit recreates Yuri Gagarin’s space flight around the Earth with commentary from Gagarin himself from the Russian State archives.