Third-Party Credit Score and Mitigation of Investors' Risk-averseness: Empirical Evidence from P2P Lending

Third-Party Credit Score and Mitigation of Investors' Risk-averseness: Empirical Evidence from P2P Lending

This study examines what changes are made in investors' decision-making when the P2P lending platform provides additional credit scoring information along the way. It is found that the newly adopted external credit scoring information mitigates investors' risk avoidance tendency by reinforcing, not replacing, the internal credit scoring information and consequently by diminishing the relative importance of terms of loan in investors' funding decision-making. This provides an empirical evidence for how the risk-averseness of investors to fully take on the credit risk of a borrower is mitigated when a credit scoring system provided by a credible external body is newly introduced. The results of this study can also provide realistic instructions to participants in P2P lending markets by identifying the relative importance of factors beyond merely a discussion of their statistical significance.