Insight

Online Peer-to-Peer lending to finance business growth: Evidence from Funding Circle

ERC Insight paper

Associated Themes
  • Finance

Evidence on the business segment of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending is still scarce due to the relative novelty of the phenomenon born in 2010. In this paper, we use data from the Funding Circle (FC) loan book over the period 2010-2017 to emphasise the growing importance of this type of alternative finance as a source of funding for growth of small businesses. Loans for growth purposes represent the most significant part of the FC loan portfolio, the largest marketplace platform for business loans in the UK, before working capital loans and asset finance. Therefore, there is evidence that small businesses turn to online platforms to fund their growth.

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