For lending escrows are not needed,OP can choose right person to lend amount without getting anything as collateral as a beginner he don't have to complicate it too much.
This can be used as building reputation too because OP is not going to lose any amount by lending to the reputed members but when everything goes fine OP will get feedback which is trust.
The thing is, people get reputation for lending out or doing deals on the forum all the time. How is this buying trust?
Is all lending businesses in this section buying trust then, just to build up their reputation? Is people trading goods buying trust because they are using money to buy goods and in exchange getting feedback and trust?
See this doesn't make any sense, imo. We shouldn't be tagging new people on the forums like this. It will just discourage others from being here.