Are FinTech lending apps harmful? Evidence from user experience in the Indian market

Akbar Ali; Vijaya B. Marisetty

doi:10.1016/j.bar.2023.101269

Are FinTech lending apps harmful? Evidence from user experience in the Indian market

Akbar Ali, Vijaya B. Marisetty^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Financial Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Lower regulatory hurdles and ease of penetration has made FinTech lending grow rapidly across the world. Using around 2.19 million reviews from users of FinTech loan applications registered in Google Play Store in India, we investigate users' experience on FinTech lending. Our text analytics-based results indicate that around 20 percent of the negative experience is associated with fraud. FinTech lending firms that emerged during the COVID crisis are perceived more fraudulent compared to pre-COVID firms, highlighting FinTech lenders’ exploitation when borrowers are more vulnerable. The results are robust for fake reviews. Our study suggests that regulators should be wary of rapidly growing FinTech lending market.

Original language	English
Article number	101269
Journal	British Accounting Review
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2023.101269
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 28 Oct 2023

Keywords

n/a OA procedure
FinTech
FinTech loan applications
Fraud
Text analytics
COVID

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.bar.2023.101269

Cite this

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title = "Are FinTech lending apps harmful? Evidence from user experience in the Indian market",

abstract = "Lower regulatory hurdles and ease of penetration has made FinTech lending grow rapidly across the world. Using around 2.19 million reviews from users of FinTech loan applications registered in Google Play Store in India, we investigate users' experience on FinTech lending. Our text analytics-based results indicate that around 20 percent of the negative experience is associated with fraud. FinTech lending firms that emerged during the COVID crisis are perceived more fraudulent compared to pre-COVID firms, highlighting FinTech lenders{\textquoteright} exploitation when borrowers are more vulnerable. The results are robust for fake reviews. Our study suggests that regulators should be wary of rapidly growing FinTech lending market.",

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Are FinTech lending apps harmful? Evidence from user experience in the Indian market

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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