FinTech Lending with LowTech Pricing
Working Paper 31154
DOI 10.3386/w31154
Issue Date
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, including 45% higher rates for nonprime borrowers. Other known default predictors are often neglected. Within each segment (prime/nonprime) loan rates are not very responsive to default risk, resulting in realized loan-level returns decreasing with risk. The pricing distortions result in substantial transfers from nonprime to prime borrowers and from low- to high-risk borrowers within segment.
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Copy CitationMark J. Johnson, Itzhak Ben-David, Jason Lee, and Vincent Yao, "FinTech Lending with LowTech Pricing," NBER Working Paper 31154 (2023), https://doi.org/10.3386/w31154.