Pricing strategies in BigTech lending: Evidence from China
研究利用中国消费贷款数据，分析大型科技公司如何根据信用评级和客户渠道设定利率与额度，并发现监管政策变化后其调整了定价策略。
Abstract This paper analyzes a BigTech lender's pricing strategies in the business‐to‐customer unsecured loan market using a proprietary data set of consumer loans in China. We find that the credit rating constructed by the BigTech lender is informative of the customers' default risk. Moreover, the interest rate decreases and the credit limit increases with the credit rating. Interestingly, the BigTech lender charges different interest rates to its customers based on the customer channel, although it does not provide information about the customers' default risk. Following the passage of the China Banking Regulatory Commission Act, which reduced credit market competition, the BigTech lender increased the current rate and decreased the credit limit. We rationalize these empirical findings in a simple model of credit contract design.