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Working Paper
The Impact of Fintech Lending on Credit Access for U.S. Small Businesses
Small business lending (SBL) plays an important role in funding productive investment and fostering local economic growth. Recently, nonbank lenders have gained market share in the SBL market in the United States, especially relative to community banks. Among nonbanks, fintech lenders have become particularly active, leveraging alternative data for their own internal credit scoring. We use proprietary loan-level data from two fintech SBL platforms (Funding Circle and LendingClub) to explore the characteristics of loans originated pre-pandemic (2016‒2019). Our results show that fintech SBL ...
Working Paper
How much did banks pay to become too-big-to-fail and to become systematically important?
This paper estimates the value of the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) subsidy. Using data from the merger boom of 1991-2004, the authors find that banking organizations were willing to pay an added premium for mergers that would put them over the asset sizes that are commonly viewed as the thresholds for being TBTF. They estimate at least $15 billion in added premiums for the eight merger deals that brought the organizations to over $100 billion in assets. In addition, the authors find that both the stock and bond markets reacted positively to these TBTF merger deals. Their estimated TBTF subsidy is ...
Working Paper
Does Scale Matter in Community Bank Performance? Evidence Obtained by Applying Several New Measures of Performance
SUPERSEDES WP16-15 We consider how size matters for banks in three size groups: banks with assets of less than $1 billion (small community banks), banks with assets between $1 billion and $10 billion (large community banks), and banks with assets between $10 billion and $50 billion (midsize banks). Community banks have potential advantages in relationship lending compared with large banks. However, increases in regulatory compliance and technological burdens may have disproportionately increased community banks? costs, raising concerns about small businesses? access to credit. Our evidence ...
Working Paper
Do Fintech Lenders Penetrate Areas That Are Underserved by Traditional Banks?
Supersedes Working Paper 17-17 Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. In this paper, we use account-level data from LendingClub and Y-14M data reported by U.S. banks with assets over $50 billion to examine whether the fintech lending platform could expand credit access to consumers. We find that LendingClub?s consumer lending activities have penetrated areas that may be underserved by traditional banks, such as in highly concentrated markets and in areas that have fewer bank branches per capita. We also find that the portion of LendingClub ...
Working Paper
Is Bigger Necessarily Better in Community Banking?
We investigate the relative performance of publicly traded community banks (those with assets less than $10 billion) versus larger banks (those with assets between $10 billion and $50 billion). A body of research has shown that community banks have potential advantages in relationship lending compared with large banks, although newer research suggests that these advantages may be shrinking. In addition, the burdens placed on community banks by the regulatory reforms mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the need to increase investment in technology, ...
Journal Article
Market discipline prior to failure
This paper examines pricing behavior for bonds issued by bank holding companies in the period prior to failure of their bank subsidiaries. The results indicate that bond prices are related to the financial condition of the issuing bank holding companies, and that bonds spreads start rising as early as six quarters prior to failure as the issuing firm's financial condition and credit rating deteriorate. Strong market discipline exists during the critical period -- bond spreads for troubled banking organizations are many times those of healthy ones. Our results suggests that bond spreads could ...
Working Paper
Fintech Lending and Mortgage Credit Access
Following the 2008 financial crisis, mortgage credit tightened and banks lost significant mortgage market share to nonbank lenders, including to fintech firms recently. Have fintech firms expanded credit access, or are their customers similar to those of traditional lenders? Unlike in small business and unsecured consumers lending, fintech mortgage lenders do not have the same incentives or flexibility to use alternative data for credit decisions because of stringent mortgage origination requirements. Fintech loans are broadly similar to those made by traditional lenders, despite innovations ...
Working Paper
Redefault Risk in the Aftermath of the Mortgage Crisis: Why Did Modifications Improve More Than Self-Cures?
This paper examines changes in the redefault rate of mortgages that were selected for modification during 2008?2011, compared with that of similarly situated self-cured mortgages. We find a large decline in the redefault rate of both modified and self-cured mortgages over this period, but the improvement was greatest for modifications. Our analysis has identified several important factors contributing to the greater improvement for modified loans, including an increasing share of principal-reduction modifications, which appear to be more effective than other types of modification and ...