Supersedes Working Paper 17-17. Fintech has been playing an increasing role in shaping financial and banking landscapes. There have been concerns about the use of alternative data sources by fintech lenders and the impact on financial inclusion. We compare loans made by a large fintech lender...

Fintechs are believed to help expand credit access to underserved consumers without taking on additional risk. We compare the performance efficiency of LendingClub's unsecured personal loans with similar loans originated by banks. Using stochastic frontier estimation, we decompose the observed...