IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/09-056.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Social Lending incorporate Social Technologies? The use of Web 2.0 Technologies in online P2P lending

Author

Listed:
  • Arvind Ashta
  • Djamchid Assadi

Abstract

Microcredit interest costs remain higher than those of commercial banks in spite of significant donor funds, largely owing to transaction costs relative to small loan sizes. With the rise of Web 2.0 and online social interactivity, can these transaction costs be reduced through peer to peer lending? Peer to Peer lending and Web 2.0 have two things in common. The first common denominator is that both of them are rather newcomers in their respective fields and growing fast. The second is that they are both based on mutual and social exchanges between people instead of centrally controlled communications and relationships. The main objective of this paper was to investigate whether they are integrated to support a higher level of social interactions and associations for less (transaction) costs. We find that peer to peer lending consists of diverse websites of microcredit (Kiva, Wokai), social investing (MicroPlace) as well as small loans at market rates (Prosper, Zopa, Lending Club), and even lending between friends and family members (Virgin Money). The paper studies the use of web 2.0 technologies (blogs, interactivity between lenders and buyers, peers' reviews and comments, peers communities and chats) in six such peer-to-peer lending sites. It finds that most of the peer-to-peer lenders are in fact intermediaries between the peers (lender and borrowers) and there is little direct contact between the peers. One website used none of the web 2.0 tools. None of the websites used all the web 2.0 tools. The impact on transaction costs is therefore very little. A discussion of difficulties in establishing platforms in this field and directions for future research are provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Arvind Ashta & Djamchid Assadi, 2009. "Does Social Lending incorporate Social Technologies? The use of Web 2.0 Technologies in online P2P lending," Working Papers CEB 09-056.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:09-056
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/53996/1/RePEc_sol_wpaper_09-056.pdf
    File Function: RePEc_sol_wpaper_09-056
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexandra Bernasek & James Ronald Stanfield, 1997. "The Grameen Bank as Progressive Institutional Adjustment," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 359-366, June.
    2. Paul G. Mahoney, "undated". "Information Technology and the Organization of Securities Markets," Center for Financial Institutions Working Papers 02-17, Wharton School Center for Financial Institutions, University of Pennsylvania.
    3. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    4. Arvind Ashta, 2009. "Microcredit Capital Flows and Interest Rates: An Alternative Explanation," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 661-684.
    5. Laurence Attuel-Mendes & Arvind Ashta, 2008. "French Legislation And The Development Of Credit Availability For Microenterprise," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 2(2), pages 123-137.
    6. Beatriz Armendariz & Jonathan Morduch, 2007. "The Economics of Microfinance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262512017, April.
    7. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    8. Maurice B. Goudzwaard, 1968. "Price Ceilings And Credit Rationing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 23(1), pages 177-185, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xiong Xiong & Zhang Jin & Jin Xi & Feng Xu, 2016. "Review on Financial Innovations in Big Data Era," Journal of Systems Science and Information, De Gruyter, vol. 4(6), pages 489-504, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arvind Ashta & Marek Hudon, 2009. "To whom should we be fair? Ethical issues in Balancing Stakeholder Interests from Banco Compartamos Case Study," Working Papers CEB 09-036.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Arvind Ashta & Laurence Attuel-Mendès & Zaka Ratsimalahelo, 2015. "Another “French paradox”: explaining why interest rates to microenterprises did not increase with the change in French usury legislation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 479-509, December.
    3. Tristan Caballero-Montes, 2023. "Integrating market conditions into regulatory decisions on microfinance interest rates: does competition matter?," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 201-232, June.
    4. Assaf Razin & Efraim Sadka & Chi-Wa Yuen, 1999. "An Information-Based Model of Foreign Direct Investment: The Gains from Trade Revisited," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 579-596, November.
    5. Cowling, Marc & Ughetto, Elisa & Lee, Neil, 2018. "The innovation debt penalty: Cost of debt, loan default, and the effects of a public loan guarantee on high-tech firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 166-176.
    6. van Rijn, Jordan, 2018. "The Effect of Membership Expansion on Credit Union Risk and Returns," Staff Paper Series 588, University of Wisconsin, Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    7. Ehing, Daniel, 2015. "Marktversagen auf dem geförderten Pflegezusatzversicherungsmarkt? Ergebnisse einer Simulationsanalyse auf Basis von Routinedaten der GKV," FZG Discussion Papers 58, University of Freiburg, Research Center for Generational Contracts (FZG).
    8. Dileni Gunewardena & Abdoulaye Seck, 2020. "Heterogeneity in entrepreneurship in developing countries: Risk, credit, and migration and the entrepreneurial propensity of youth and women," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 713-725, August.
    9. Gorman, Gary G. & Rosa, Peter J. & Faseruk, Alex, 2005. "Institutional lending to knowledge-based businesses," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 793-819, November.
    10. Valérie Revest & Alessandro Sapio, 2012. "Financing technology-based small firms in Europe: what do we know?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 179-205, July.
    11. Welfens, Paul J. J., 2009. "The Transatlantic Banking Crisis: Lessons and EU Reforms," IZA Policy Papers 2, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Gabriele Angori & David Aristei, 2020. "Heterogeneity and state dependence in firms’ access to credit: Microevidence from the euro area," SEEDS Working Papers 0220, SEEDS, Sustainability Environmental Economics and Dynamics Studies, revised Feb 2020.
    13. Samuel, Cherian, 1996. "The investment decision : a re-examination of competing theories using panel data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1656, The World Bank.
    14. Neyer, Ulrike, 2004. "Asymmetric information in credit markets--implications for the transition in Eastern Germany," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 61-78, March.
    15. Batuo, Michael & Mlambo, Kupukile & Asongu, Simplice, 2018. "Linkages between financial development, financial instability, financial liberalisation and economic growth in Africa," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-179.
    16. Carter Bloch, 2005. "R&D investment and internal finance: the cash flow effect," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 213-223.
    17. Poitevin, Michel, 1989. "Information et marchés financiers : une revue de littérature," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 65(4), pages 555-589, décembre.
    18. Robert E. Carpenter & Bruce C. Petersen, 2002. "Capital Market Imperfections, High-Tech Investment, and New Equity Financing," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(477), pages 54-72, February.
    19. Greenwald, Bruce C. & Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1987. "Imperfect information, credit markets and unemployment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-2), pages 444-456.
    20. Fukui, Masao, 2018. "Asset Quality Cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 97-108.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:09-056. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.