Financial Literacy in for-profit vs. pro-social peer to per lending

Published February 28, 2024
By Author List: Laura Gonzalez

This study examines 1,347 lending decisions by finance students on a mock P2P site.

Testimonials were used to randomly condition the financially literate lenders towards for-profit or pro-social decision-making.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending facilitates direct online lending and aims to provide financial inclusion and investment returns. Lender goals range from for-profit to pro-social and objective information is limited, which highlights the need to examine heuristics.

This study examines 1,347 lending decisions by finance students on a mock P2P site. Testimonials were used to randomly condition the financially literate lenders towards for-profit or pro-social decision-making. Each investor evaluated three loans. The three loan applications were identical except for a female or male headshot (vs an icon) and random reports of 50% funding for the female or male loan in 3 days (vs 11 days for the opposite gender and 7 for the icon). Previous research surveys students on a mock platform (Gonzalez, 2020) and reports similar heuristics and lifelike decisions in student and general population samples (Gonzalez and Komarova, 2014).

Findings

Lenders randomly conditioned towards pro-social lending state lower trust in borrowers. However, pro-social investors state lower risk in P2P lending and higher financial literacy. Second, pro-social investors are more confident when lending to borrowers highly trusted by other lenders, especially if the popular loan applicant is female. Third, pro-social conditioning increases lending to male applicants when the popular loan applicant is female. Fourth, pro-social investors who have experienced financial trauma have greater confidence in bad loan recovery.

This is the first study of heuristics in pro-social vs for-profit P2P lending. In addition, it shows that testimonials can effectively condition lending goals and affect trust and risk perceptions.