Crowlending for SMEs and VSEs: Myths and realities of a financial innovation

By Faten Ben Slimane, Evelyne Rousselet
English

This paper analyses the crowdlending market which is substantially growing during these last years. The objective of the study is to assess the ability of this financial innovation to ease financing for SMEs and very small enterprises (VSEs). To achieve that, we conducted both documentary study of the most important French lending platforms and interviews with managers of these platforms and also with credit brokers. We find that lending platforms are opened to a larger number of companies. We also find that they offer an adaptable funding process for SMEs and VSEs. Their new functioning is progressively changing financial landscape pushing banks to reorganize their credit channel. By “disturbing” traditional bank credit business model and by providing a new opportunities in terms of financing enterprises, our study concludes that we can consider crowdlending as a real innovative source of financing SMEs and VSEs. JEL Codes: O30, G23, M13

Keywords

  • crowdlending
  • financial innovation
  • financing
  • SMEs
  • platforms
  • lending
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