Peer-to-peer online lending: evidence from a Chinese platform

Project Description

Financial Peer to Peer (P2P) lending is an online process where those needing to borrow and those able to lend funds are matched directly without an intermediary. It has grown rapidly worldwide; the P2P lending market in China is the largest in the world and in the UK the market has risen from �500 million in 2013 to �2.7 billion in 2015.

The Chinese P2P lending market has some 3600 online lending platforms and loans totalling 980 billion yuan (�117.6 billion) in 2015. A guidance policy on regulation of the P2P sector was introduced in China in 2015, but concerns are still expressed about the incidence of failure in the growing sector, as a result of mismanagement and of fraud on the part of lenders.

The research will examine factors that influence lenders' decisions - who to lend to, what conditions to impose and borrower risk as well as regulation and policymaking.

In partnership with Heriot-Watt University, Tianjin University and University of Sheffield