The Use of Web 2.0 Technologies in Online Lending and Impact on Different Components of Interest Rates

Microcredit interest costs remain higher than those of commercial banks in spite of significant donor funds, largely owing to transaction costs relative to small loan sizes. With the rise of Web 2.0 and online social interactivity, can these transaction costs be reduced through peer to peer lending? Peer to Peer transactions and Web 2.0 have two things in common. The first common denominator is that both of them are rather newcomers in their respective fields and growing fast. The second is that they are both based on mutual and social exchanges between people instead of intermediary based relationships. The main objective of this chapter was to investigate whether peer to peer online lending transactions are integrated to support a higher level of social interactions and associations with a promise of reducing (transaction) costs through disintermediation and risk reduction. We find that “peer to peer” lending consists of diverse websites of microcredit (Kiva, Wokai, Babyloan), social investing (MicroPlace) as well as small loans at market rates (Prosper, Zopa, Lending Club), and even lending between friends and family members (Virgin Money). The chapter studies the use of web 2.0 technologies (blogs, interactivity between lenders and buyers, peers‘ reviews and comments, peers communities and chats) in seven such online lending sites. It finds that most of the so called “peer-to-peer” lenders are in fact intermediaries between the peers (lender and borrowers) and there is little direct contact between the peers. One website used none of the web 2.0 tools. None of the websites used all the web 2.0 tools. The impact on transaction costs should therefore be very little as there is neither disintermediation nor risk reduction. A discussion of difficulties in establishing platforms in this field and directions for future research are provided.