I've also kicked around the idea of the country capitalizing its citizens. In my imagination, how it would work is for people to start out, at the age of 18, with something like $500 of credit. The money would only be good toward spending on going into some business, anything required to enjoin in that activity. If people pay it back, it would be a no interest loan. As they engage the system their credit would increase. Eventually, they would be able to borrow enough to start up much larger operations. If they didn't pay it back, they'd get frozen out of all future such loans for some period of time. Society would have to figure out what that period of time was, based upon things like history, and whether getting onto that list would effect those people's credit with the banking system as well.
The idea is to eliminate the situation people seeking to capitalize upon opportunities encounter when they apply for a loan at the bank, but either don't have any credit or are disproportionately denied, for various reasons. Everybody would be treated fairly. Your credit would go up based upon your own history. So, the content of people's character would matter more than the color of their skin. It wouldn't necessarily compete with the banking system per se. People with good credit who needed large amounts of money would still use the banking system to get that money. So would people who had opportunities that had great potential for return, but lacked credit. They would pay higher rates on those monies, just like they do now.
The idea is not to compete with the banks outright, as the amount of money borrowed has an effect upon the money supply. We want to maintain the sort of control over the money supply which the rate structure gives us. It wouldn't, therefore, be something extended to consumer loans, such as for housing. It would be involved in commercial real estate. Along those lines, any money loaned out this way that is paid back would have a zero effect upon the money supply, as it would be a one for one transaction against the authority of the government to create money. The monies not paid back would shrink the money supply, so the amount of failure would have some impact upon the economy. The amount owed could also be subject to policy style reduction, approximating negative interest rates if that sort of incentive is deemed necessary. If substantial inflation took hold, the amount could also be adjusted up.