• The Journal of Society for e-Business Studies
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.285-301
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• 2010

Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending is an open marketplace for loans not from bank but from individuals online. Financial transactions are facilitated directly between individuals ("peers") without any intermediation of a traditional financial institution. A market study by renowned research company forecasts that P2P lending will grow very fast and a couple of P2P lending sites in Korea also are getting attentions by providing the alternative financial services. In P2P lending market, Lender will enjoy higher income generated from the loans in the form of interest than interest that can be earned by financial products provided by official financial institutions. Furthermore, lenders are able to decide who they would lend the money for themselves. Meanwhile, borrowers with low credit scores are able to finance their liquidity requirement with low cost and convenient access to the Internet. The objective of this paper is to introduce P2P lending and its issues of information asymmetry. We provide the insights from the case study of one of P2P lending sites in Korea and review the issues in P2P lending market as research topics. Specifically, information asymmetry issues in both traditional financial institutions and P2P lending are discussed.