Crowdlending: mapping the core literature and research frontiers

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending uses two-sided platforms to link borrowers with a crowd of lenders. Despite considerable diversity in crowdlending research, studies in this area typically focus on several common research topics, including information asymmetries, social capital, communication channels, and rating-based models. This young research field is still expanding. However, its importance has increased considerably since 2018. This rise in importance suggests that P2P lending may offer a promising new scientific research field. This paper presents a bibliometric study based on keyword co-occurrence, author and reference co-citations, and bibliographic coupling. The paper thus maps the key features of P2P lending research. Although many of the most cited papers are purely financial, some focus on behavioral finance. The trend in this field is toward innovative finance based on new technologies. The conclusions of this study provide valuable insight for researchers, managers, and policymakers to understand the current and future status of this field. The variables that affect new financial contexts and the strategies that promote technology-based financial environments must be investigated in the future.

Investors’ confidence in the crowdlending platform and the impact of Covid-19

“…Hence, this topic has sparked research interest in terms of exploring how financial products and services are produced, delivered, and consumed ( Allen et al, 2021 ). However, many factors can impact every investment decision ( Ribeiro-Navarrete et al, 2021a ; Mollick, 2014 ), so this study examines Covid-19 and capital markets from a new perspective. Therefore, we contribute to the existing literature with new knowledge that helps to answer the implications of Covid-19 on the global economy, since, as authors such as Nozawa & Qiu, (2021) state, it has not yet been fully revealed.…”

A Bibliometric mapping of peer-to-peer lending research based on economic and business perspective

“…However, the weakness of the peer-to-peer lending system lies in the limited information related to the post-loan history of the borrower. This is because the reputation of the borrower is generally the main reference for investors who are able to increase their trust in providing funds for peer-to-peer lending investment projects ( Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021 ). Thus, transparency of data regarding potential borrowers will be advantageous to support investment decisions.…”

“…Beside that, Investor satisfaction is also an important factor that needs to be considered by platform managers, such as the ease of access to information related to platform management, details of funding projects, the latest developments in the platform and mobile application facilities ( Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021 ). Therefore, to increase competitiveness and attract investors and borrowers, peer-to-peer lending platforms are encouraged to increase the disclosure of information they share with users ( Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021 ). Moreover, in peer-to-peer lending transactions, the disclosure of information can reduce information asymmetry to minimize the potential for failure.…”

“…(2019) conducted study on more than 178,000 loan lists in China and revealed that the reputation or loan history of prospective borrowers is the most important factor as the main reference for investors in evaluating the risks of investment on peer-to-peer lending. In addition, from the point of view of investment activities on the platform, according to a study by Ribeiro-Navarrete et al. (2021) , investor satisfaction on the peer-to-peer lending platform is determined by the ease of doing searches on the platform, updating project details, offering facilities in the form of mobile applications, publications on blogs related to the latest developments.…”

“…Based on literature review related to peer-to-peer lending bibliometric studies, it can be concluded that there is a gap on the research area. The first is related to the source of publication database used, which almost all related research takes from the WoS index ( Ariza-Garzón et al., 2021 ; Ribeiro-Navarrete et al., 2021 ; Li et al., 2020 ; Martínez-climent et al., 2018 ). Considering this fact, it is clear that academics need to investigate further regarding peer-to-peer lending from an economic and business perspective as a relatively new issue.…”