FinTech Lending: Research Progress and Future Prospects

Fintech lending refers to the provision of fully online, unsecured credit services with minimal human intervention through digital technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence. It plays a crucial role in enhancing credit market efficiency in financially underserved areas across both consumption and production sectors. Existing research primarily uses unique account-level data to empirically investigate the effectiveness and advantages of fintech lending targeting individual households, credit screening, delinquency collection, lending efficiency, and resource allocation, and reveal the competitive and complementary relationships between fintech lending and traditional bank credit. Recent studies have gradually shifted attention to fintech lending for small and micro enterprises (SMEs), predominantly exploring its mechanisms in alleviating financing constraints and extending examinations to its real effects. Future research on fintech lending needs to expand its scope from multiple perspectives, including product innovation in specific sectors, the application of new technologies, and full lifecycle empowerment. It is also necessary to explore the interactive development of “universality” and “inclusiveness”, as well as issues related to privacy protection and data governance, by integrating practical considerations such as how finance can benefit residents and enterprises and addressing the attribution of data property rights.