金融科技借贷与债务螺旋

Fintech Lending and Debt Spiral Lili Dai,1Jianlei Han,2Jing Shi,3and Bohui Zhang4 March2025 Fintech Lending and Debt Spiral Abstract We examine whether and how consumers can be trapped in debt spirals in fintech lending markets.With alternative data sources, fintech lenders may target and provide easy-to-access creditproducts to new customers. We find that after obtainingthefocal fintech lender’s loan approval,borrowers receive more promotional messages from other fintech lending platforms, causinggreater tendencies of subsequent new borrowing, personal expenditure, loan delinquency, andexperiencing adverse social outcomes. This effect is stronger for borrowers with low financialliteracyandlimited credit access. Taken together, we document the economic and socialconsequences of fintech consumers’overborrowing behavior. “Key competitive advantages of FinTech lenders…allow for more elastic loan supply but alsohave the potential to induce overborrowing by naïve consumers.” –Berg, Fuster, and Puri (2022) 1.Introduction Priorfinancial technologystudies suggest that fintech lenderscanrespond more elastically todemand shocks(Fuster et al. 2019; 2021)andhelpexpandcredit access to underserved borrowers(Berg et al. 2020;Di Maggio et al. 2022), whileregulatorsaround the globeareincreasinglyconcernedaboutthe businessmodels of fintech lenders,whichmay induce overborrowingandharmconsumers’financialwell-being(OECD 2021; Treasury 2022).For example, the U.S.Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)cautionsthat borrowerswhotakefintech personalloans based on the “Buy Now, Pay Later” modelexhibit high levels of financial distress and faceoverextensionproblems(CFPB2022;2023).1However, research on the overextension of creditinthefintech lendingmarketisscarce(Berg et al. 2022).This study provides direct evidence ofhowconsumerscanbetrappedintoadebt spiralthrough the receipt ofmobilemessages fromfintechlenders, aspecificmechanism of enticingnew borrowers.2 The existing research onconsumerfinanceshows thatindividual borrowers may encounteroverextensionand economic hardshipproblemsarising fromvariouscredit markets,including, forinstance,mortgage lending (Bond et al. 2009),credit cards (Benton et al. 2007; Heidhues andKoszegi 2010),andpaydayloans(Gathergood et al. 2019;Allcott et al. 2022). This effect isespecially significant for low-income consumers andhouseholds(Melzer 2011; Melzer 2018)andmay spill over to consumers’othersocial outcomes(Carrell and Zinman 2014).In this study, wecomplement this stream of research byinvestigatingand documentingtheeconomicand socialconsequences ofconsumers’ engagement in overborrowing behaviorin the digital erathroughthefintech lendingmarket. With access to alternative data sources, fintech lenders may strategically target and entice newcustomers, potentiallyleading toborrowers’unsustainable indebtedness.Forinstance, in China,consumers often complain about mobile advertisements from fintech platforms, and manyfintechlenders have been accused ofmisleadingadvertising, such as tricking borrowers into loan serviceswithlimitedinformation on processing costs.As a result, the China Banking and InsuranceRegulatory Commission (CBIRC) has highlighted overborrowing risk faced by fintech borrowersrelating to several fintech lending issues, including ambiguous loan terms, induced excessiveexpenditures, and personal information leakage (CBIRC 2020). Fintech borrowers are likely to be trapped in debt spiralsthroughthreepotential channels.First,those borrowers with a lower level of financial literacy (Gathergood 2012) are more likely toengage in self-control problems and impulse-driven expenditures, leading to overborrowingproblems (Benton et al. 2007; Heidhues and Koszegi 2010). In thefintech lending markets, thecompetitive features of lending products and platforms, such as the streamlined application process,accelerated processing time, andless effort of human input demanded from consumers, willamplify borrowers’ self-control problems, thusinducingtheir overborrowing behavior(Berg et al.2022). We consider this mechanism as theFinancial Literacy Channel. Second,in the fintechlending markets, those consumers with a strong and urgent demand foraccessing credit services are typically associated with a high level of poverty and are underservedby traditional financial institutions (Hau et al. 2019). Prior economic studies suggestthat povertycan perpetuate itself by further undermining individuals’ self-control capacity (e.g., Bernheim etal. 2015), therefore causing overborrowing behavior.Especially whenfintechlenders have theability toexploit alternative datasources, they can easily target those potentialborrowerswithlimited access to traditional financial servicesand executepredatory lending strategieson thoseborrowers(Di Maggio et al. 2022), who will consequentlybe induced into overborrowing.Wetreatthis mechanism as theCreditAccessChannel. Third, the regulatory oversight and enforcement mechanisms ag