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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
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
Fintech, Cryptocurrencies, and CBDC: Financial Structural Transformation in China”
Fintech and decentralized finance have penetrated all areas of the financial system and have improved financial inclusion in the last decade. In this paper, we review the recent literature on fintech, cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). There are important implications from the rise of fintech and the introduction of stablecoins and CBDCs in recent years. We provide an overview of China’s experience in fintech, focusing on payments, digital banking, fintech lending, and the recent progress on its CBDC pilots (e-CNY). We also discuss important ...
Working Paper
The Credit Card Act and Consumer Debt Structure
We investigate whether the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 influenced the debt structure of consumers. By debt structure, we mean the proportion of total available credit from credit cards for each consumer.The act enhances disclosures of contractual and related information and restricts card issuers’ ability to raise interest rates or charge late or over-limit fees, primarily affecting non-prime borrowers. Using the credit history via the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel during 2006–2016, we find that the average ...
Working Paper
The Role of Bank-Fintech Partnerships in Creating a More Inclusive Banking System
Fintech firms are often viewed as competing with banks. Instead, more recently, there has been growth in partnership and collaboration between fintech firms and banks. These partnerships have allowed banks to access more information on consumers through data aggregation, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), and other tools. We explore the demographics of consumers targeted by banks that have entered into such partnerships. Specifically, we test whether banks are more likely to extend credit offers (by mail) and/or credit originations to consumers who would have otherwise been ...
Working Paper
Fintech Lending: Financial Inclusion, Risk Pricing, and Alternative Information
Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. Banks have been concerned about the uneven playing field because fintech lenders are not subject to the same rigorous oversight. There have also been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by fintech lenders and the impact on financial inclusion. In this paper, we explore the advantages/disadvantages of loans made by a large fintech lender and similar loans that were originated through traditional banking channels. Specifically, we use account-level data from the Lending Club and Y-14M bank ...
Journal Article
Evolution in bank complexity
This study documents the changing organizational complexity of bank holding companies as gauged by the number and types of subsidiaries. Using comprehensive data on U.S. financial acquisitions over the past thirty years, the authors track the process of consolidation and diversification, finding that banks not only grew in size, but also incorporated subsidiaries that span the entire spectrum of business activities within the financial sector. Their analysis shows that bank holding companies added banks to their firms in the early 1990s, but gradually expanded into nonbank intermediation ...
Working Paper
Did Fintech Loans Default More During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Were Fintech Firms “Cream-Skimming” the Best Borrowers?
A growing portion of consumer credit has recently been devoted to unsecured personal installment loans. Fintech firms have been active players in this market, with an increasing market share, while the market share of banks has declined. Studies of fintech lending have shown that their digital access and ability to leverage alternative data have increased accessibility in underserved areas, enabled consumers with thin credit files to obtain credit, and provided a lower cost alternative to long-term credit card financing. This paper exams three questions: (1) Do proprietary loan rating systems ...
Working Paper
A Survey of Fintech Research and Policy Discussion
The intersection of finance and technology, known as fintech, has resulted in the dramatic growth of innovations and has changed the entire financial landscape. While fintech has a critical role to play in democratizing credit access to the unbanked and thin-file consumers around the globe, those consumers who are currently well served also turn to fintech for faster services and greater transparency. Fintech, particularly the blockchain, has the potential to be disruptive to financial systems and intermediation. Our aim in this paper is to provide a comprehensive fintech literature survey ...
Working Paper
Internal Liquidity Management and Local Credit Provision
This paper studies the patterns of internal liquidity management and their effect on bank lending, using a novel branch-level dataset of Brazilian banks. Our results suggest that internal liquidity management increases during times of financial stress. Privately owned banks are most affected by a liquidity shock, and increase the level of internal funding to maintain their branch lending, while their government-owned competitors react strategically. Private and government banks increase the funding of branches in concentrated and riskier areas. This funding translates into more lending, as ...