Publications

2021
Working Paper

Invisible Primes: Fintech Lending with Alternative Data

By: Marco Di Maggio, Dimuthu Ratnadiwakara and Don Carmichael

We exploit anonymized administrative data provided by a major fintech platform to investigate whether using alternative data to assess borrowers’ creditworthiness results in broader credit access. Comparing actual outcomes of the fintech platform’s model to... View Details

Keywords: Fintech Lending; Alternative Data; Machine Learning; Algorithm Bias; Finance; Information Technology; Financing and Loans; Analytics and Data Science; Credit

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October 2021
Article

Fintech Borrowers: Lax Screening or Cream-Skimming?

By: Marco Di Maggio and Vincent Yao

Personal credit is the fastest-growing segment of the consumer credit market, mainly driven by fintech lenders' staggering expansion. We study this market using a unique individual-level data, which covers most of the top fintech and traditional lenders, and provides... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Lending; Consumer Finance; Credit History; Self-control; Present Bias; Financing and Loans; Personal Finance; Credit; Behavior

28 Mar 2018
Research & Ideas

Sophisticated Investors May Be Harming Fintech Lending Platforms

iPhoto Marketplace lending platforms such as LendingClub and Prosper have made significant competitive inroads against traditional banks in recent years by bringing together people who want to borrow with investors ready to bankroll them.... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Banking; Financial Services

March 2024 (Revised June 2024)
Case

Kashat: Navigating the Uncertainties of the Egyptian Fintech Market

By: Paul A. Gompers and Ahmed Dahawy

Karim Nour, the founder of Kashat, an Egyptian nano-lending fintech company, is contemplating how to manage the growth of his startup. Over the summer of 2022, Kashat's loan disbursements had grown by nearly 40%, fueled by macroeconomic instability in Egypt. However,... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Business Model; Developing Countries and Economies; Acquisition; Business Exit or Shutdown; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Business Growth and Maturation; Business Startups; Financing and Loans; Capital; Financial Services Industry; Banking Industry; Egypt

February 2021
Case

Lidya: Bringing Nigerian FinTech Innovation to Global Small and Medium Enterprises

By: Lauren Cohen and Spencer C.N. Hagist

Lidya CEO Tunde Kehinde must size up options for the expansion of his novel lending practices that drastically reduce the credit cycle in his developing Nigeria, and determine if expansion into Eastern Europe will prove successful or disastrous. View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Economics; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Strategy; Expansion; Nigeria

2024
Book

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream: How Technology Is Transforming Lending and Shaping a New Era of Small Business Opportunity

By: Karen G. Mills

The second edition of Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream, builds on the groundbreaking 2019 book with new insights on how technology and artificial intelligence are transforming small business lending. This ambitious view covers the significance of... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; AI; AI and Machine Learning; Small Business; Economy; Technology Adoption; Credit; Financing and Loans; Analytics and Data Science

25 Oct 2020
Research & Ideas

The Dark Side of Fintech Borrowing

Consumers turning to fintech lenders are more likely to spend beyond their means, sink further into debt, and ultimately default more often than people with similar credit profiles borrowing from traditional banks, according to recent... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Financial Services; Banking

July 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Clair

By: Lauren Cohen, Grace Headinger and Marcos Quirno

Clair was founded with a simple mission: to expedite America’s workers access to their hard-earned wages. In the headwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, the startup had successfully raised a seed round of $4.5 million, and within two years the earned wage access (EWA)... View Details

Keywords: Fintech; Ewa; Lending; Technology; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Social Enterprise; Business Strategy; Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Venture Capital; Profit; Financial Services Industry; United States

2019
Book

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream: How Technology Is Transforming Lending and Shaping a New Era of Small Business Opportunity

By: Karen G. Mills

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream describes the needs of small businesses for capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been... View Details

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July 2023 (Revised October 2024)
Case

Revenue Recognition at Stride Funding: Making Sense of Revenues for a Fintech Startup

By: Paul M. Healy and Jung Koo Kang

The case explores the challenges of revenue recognition and financial reporting for Stride Funding (Stride), a fintech startup that has disrupted the student loan market. Stride leveraged proprietary machine learning and financial models to underwrite alternative... View Details

Keywords: Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Entrepreneurial Finance; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; Governance Compliance; Accrual Accounting; Financial Services Industry; United States

April 2020 (Revised August 2020)
Case

CredEx Fintech: Business Model Transformation During the Digital Era

By: Laura Huang, Raphael Amit and Xu Han

Founded in 2010, CredEx has been a fast and constant innovator in the microfinance industry in China. Tang Xia, CEO and co-founder of CredEx, has led the company through a number of profound business model innovations in response to external environment changes, which... View Details

Keywords: Digitization; Fintech; Business Model; Innovation and Invention; Transformation; Microfinance; Organizational Change and Adaptation

05 Nov 2024
Book

Building the Road to 'Small Business Utopia' with AI and Fintech

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from chapter one of Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream, written by Karen G. Mills, senior fellow at Harvard Business School. The second edition was published in 2024 by Palgrave Macmillan. The cycle of View Details

Keywords: by Karen G. Mills; Financial Services

Research Summary

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream: How Technology Is Transforming Lending and Shaping a New Era of Small Business Opportunity

By: Karen Mills

Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream describes the needs of small businesses for capital and demonstrates how technology—novel data sources, artificial intelligence, machine learning—will transform the small business lending market. This market has been... View Details

19 Nov 2019
Op-Ed

Gender Bias Complaints against Apple Card Signal a Dark Side to Fintech

Twittersphere that they would investigate. Technology is undeniably transforming the financial services industry. Fintechs, Big Tech, and banks are using increasing volumes of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to build new algorithms to determine... View Details

Keywords: by Karen G. Mills; Financial Services

2021
Chapter

Building Small Business Utopia: How Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Can Increase Small Business Success

By: Karen G. Mills and Annie Dang

Small business lending has remained unchanged for decades, laden with frictions and barriers that prevent many small businesses from accessing the capital they need to succeed. Financial technology, or “fintech,” promises to change this trajectory. In 2010, new fintech... View Details

Keywords: Big Data; Fintech; Artificial Intelligence; Small Business; Financing and Loans; Capital; Success; AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science

October 2024
Case

Tonik

By: Andy Wu, Maliha Malek Quadir and Aticus Peterson

This case study examines Tonik, the first digital bank in the Philippines, as it navigates the challenges of scaling its lending operations and achieving profitability in an evolving fintech landscape. It explores Tonik's journey from its launch in 2018 to early 2024,... View Details

Keywords: Banking Industry; Financial Services Industry; Technology Industry; Philippines

September 2018 (Revised May 2021)
Teaching Plan

Eastern Bank: Innovating Through Eastern Labs

By: Karen Mills, Dennis Campbell and Aaron Mukerjee

Eastern Bank is a 200-year-old New England mutual bank with a community focus. Eastern specializes in small business lending, having made strategic investments to become the top SBA lender in New England in the midst of the Great Recession, when other banks were... View Details

Keywords: Banks; Fintech; Innovation; Innovation ＆ Entrepreneurship; Innovation And Strategy; Technological Change; Technology And Innovation Management; Entrepreneurial Management; Intrapreneurship; Banks and Banking; Innovation and Invention; Entrepreneurship; Innovation Strategy; Technological Innovation; Information Technology; Management

14 Dec 2016
Working Paper Summaries

The State of Small Business Lending: Innovation and Technology and the Implications for Regulation

Keywords: by Karen Gordon Mills and Brayden McCarthy; Financial Services

August 2019
Case

ClearScore, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In October 2017, Experian, one of the “Big Three” consumer credit reporting agencies in the United Kingdom made an offer to acquire ClearScore for a total consideration of £293 million. Founded by Justin Basini, Dan Cobley, and Nigel Morris in 2014, ClearScore was the... View Details