Asia is ahead of Europe by the popularity of P2P lending

The analysis of search queries related to P2P lending, which was conducted by the international fintech holding Robocash Group, has shown that relative popularity of P2P lending in many Asian countries is much higher than in some European countries.

The global dynamics of main search queries associated with P2P lending has grown steadily in recent years. At the same time, there is a significant increase in market volume. According to Statista, estimated at $9 billion in 2014, the global P2P lending market reached $54 billion by the end of 2018.

However, it is Asian countries that have actively promoted the growth in the sector in the last five years. The comparison of the frequency of queries related to P2P lending in the TOP 20 countries of the world has revealed that many Asian countries show a much higher interest in relevant services than a number of the developed countries in Europe. It is also confirmed by an outstanding growth of the Asian P2P lending sector. The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance stated that the European market increased from $0.7 billion in 2015 to $2.4 billion in 2017. Meantime, in Asia, it grew from $108 billion to $330 billion.

At the same time, despite a considerable prevalence of Chinese services in Asia (in 2017, there were reported about 700 players in China in the total number of 920 in Asia), Singapore has preserved its leadership by frequency of requests related to P2P lending. As well as over the last five years, people in Singapore have demonstrated the highest interest in P2P lending services and products over the last year. In the same 2017, its market reached $83.8 million, which comprised 58.4% of the total volume in Southeast Asia. Taking second place from the perspective of the last five years, China has lost its position in demand for P2P lending over the last year as a result of the crisis in the sector and intensified regulation. Together with the significant growth of the market recently, it has allowed Malaysia and Indonesia to come to the front. They have simultaneously outpaced the United Kingdom, the pioneering country in P2P lending.

The analysts of the company say that the aspiration to accelerate digitization and provide higher financial inclusion of the population, even in the most remote areas, has considerably promoted such dynamic in Asia. Records show that the development of solutions in fintech and alternative finance, including P2P lending services, is an essential part of this strategy.

Methodology:
To assess the popularity of P2P lending in the world, the company used the statistics on Google Trends and Google AdWords relevant for such search queries as “p2p lending”, “peer-to-peer lending”, “peer to peer lending”, “peer to peer loans”, “p2p loans”,“p2p investing”, as well as related requests on relevant topics. In Google Trends, requests are assigned scores from 0 to 100, where 100 points are relevant for the country with the highest popularity of the queries. The more points, the higher is the share of relevant queries in comparison to all queries.

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Robocash Group is an international financial group operating in the segments of consumer alternative lending and marketplace funding in Europe and Asia. The company develops robotic financial services providing lending to customers in Russia, Kazakhstan, Spain, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and India and operates the own EU-based p2p investment platform. The group develops products completely in-house using artificial intelligence, machine learning and data-driven technologies to provide precise and comprehensive risk management, comfort and speed for customers and efficiency for business.