U.S. Consumers’ Awareness and Use of Marketplace Lending

U.S. Consumers’ Awareness and Use of Marketplace Lending

Robert Adams, Tim Dore, Claire Greene, Tracy Mach, and Jason Premo

Working paper

Current Policy Perspectives

2017

Marketplace lending is a new kind of online lending that is unfamiliar to most U.S. consumers. A nationally representative survey finds that just 25 percent of U.S. consumers have heard of marketplace lending or recognize any of the names of the largest marketplace lenders (Lending Club, Prosper, SoFi, Avant). Of those consumers who have heard of a marketplace lender by name, 11.7 percent have applied for a marketplace loan (2.4 percent of all U.S. consumers).