We develop a credit market competition model that distinguishes between the information span (breadth) and signal precision (quality), capturing the emerging trend in fintech/non-bank lending where traditionally subjective ("soft") information becomes more objective and concrete ("hard"). In a...

Discrimination in lending can occur either in face-to-face decisions or in algorithmic scoring. We provide a workable interpretation of the courts' legitimate-business-necessity defense of statistical discrimination. We then estimate the extent of racial/ethnic discrimination in the largest...

With the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, small business lending through fintech lenders collapsed. We explore the reasons for the market shutdown using detailed data about loan applications, offers, and take-up from a major small business fintech credit platform. We document that...

A binding interest rate cap on household savings is a common form of financial repression in developing economies and typically benefits banks. Using proprietary data from a leading Chinese FinTech company, we study Fintech's role in ending financial repression in China through the introduction...

In this paper, we review the growing literature on FinTech lending - the provision of credit facilitated by technology that improves the customer-lender interaction or lenders' screening and monitoring of borrowers. FinTech lending has grown rapidly, though in developed economies like the U.S....

By comparing uncollateralized business loans made by a big tech lending program with conventional bank loans, we find that big tech loans tend to be smaller and have higher interest rates and that borrowers of big tech loans tend to repay far before maturity and borrow more frequently. These...

FinTech lending--known for using big data and advanced technologies--promised to break away from the traditional credit scoring and pricing models. Using a comprehensive dataset of FinTech personal loans, our study shows that loan rates continue to rely heavily on conventional credit scores,...

We use the 2020 Small Business Credit Survey to study the sources of racial disparities in use of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Black-owned firms are 8.9 percentage points less likely than observably similar white-owned firms to receive PPP loans. About 55% of this take-up disparity is...