A somewhat related idea has been used by institutional players for quite some time now - there are companies specializing in bilateral counterparty risk netting

A somewhat related idea has been used by institutional players for quite some time now - there are companies specializing in bilateral counterparty risk netting, e.g. http://www.trioptima.com/ http://www.trioptima.com/ The basic idea is identify and simplify multi-lateral transactions for multiple market participants participating in such an agreement, with the ultimate goal of reducing counterparty risk. In example above, although amount owed nets out to zero in theory, paying back such a loan would require A,B, and C to either have extra $100 cash to begin the payback process or mutually agree to cancel each other's debt (notice that this will NOT magically make an extra $100 appear out of thin air). Furthermore, credit risk needs to be priced into the transaction - i.e. how certain you are that the borrower will actually ever pay you back.