What drives the expansion of the peer-to-peer lending? Olena Havrylchyk1, Carlotta Mariotto2, Talal Rahim3, Marianne Verdier4 Abstract Peer-to-peer lending platforms are online intermediaries that match lenders with borrowers. We use data from the two leading online lenders, Prosper and Lending Club, to explore main drivers of their expansion in the United States. We exploit the heterogeneity in local lending markets at the county level to analyze three hypotheses for the penetration of online lenders: 1) crisis-related; 2) competition-related; and 3) Internet-related. Our findings support the competition-related hypothesis as online lenders have expanded more in areas with lower density of branch network and lower bank concentration that we interpret as weaker brand loyalty. We also document that spatial, socio-economic and demographic characteristics determine the expansion of online lenders. JEL codes: G21, G23, G01, O33, D40 Keywords: peer-to-peer lending, online lenders, market structure, brand loyalty, financial crisis, internet, information and communication technologies 1 LEM, University of Lille; CEPII and Labex ReFi, contact:
[email protected] 2 CERNA, Ecole des Mines de Paris, contact:
[email protected] 3 Boston University, contact:
[email protected] 4 CRED, University Paris 2 Panthéon Assas, and CERNA, Ecole des Mines de Paris, contact :
[email protected] “Banking is necessary; banks are not” Bill Gates, 1990 “Is information technology going to disrupt finance? My first response is: please. My second response is: yes.” Martin Wolf, 2016 1. Introduction First peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, Zopa, Prosper and Lending Club, have been launched in 2005-2007 in the UK and the US.