user satisfaction

Feeding Creatures of Habit

wiseclerk

Many Fintech startups compete with banks and other incumbents by offering easy to use and attractive user interfaces. They appeal to users because they offer a modern packaging for processes and at the same time work hard to make these core processes they concentrated on more efficient  (unbundling).

User interfaces are an important aspect for p2p lending marketplaces too. While a very innovative user interface might have contributed in winning the investor, once he registered he not only wants an easy to use user interface he also likes constancy. Sounds paradox?

Fact is, that some p2p lending marketplaces are not that easy to use and offer complex functionality e.g. auctions, secondary markets with discounts and premiums. The investor spends considerable time to learn how to use the functions efficiently. Once he has mastered to efficiently use all the features and reports to achieve good results he will dislike any major changes the marketplace introduces since these force him to “relearn” his way around and render his previously acquired level of experience worthless.

I have experienced this several times on multiple marketplaces. But you don’t have to take my word for it, just look at a forum after a major redesign and you won’t have to search hard to find lots of investors venting their negative opinions rather strongly.

Now knowing that p2p investors are creatures of habit, what could a p2p lending marketplace do to ‘feed’ those? Freezing in standstill is not an option. Even the most conservative investor expects the marketplace to evolve and offer new features.

My suggestions are:

  • The platform should decide early on for a main navigation structure and stick with that. Changes and optimizations should subordinate to that structure and not change this main navigation
  • Development of new features should take wishes of investors into account (do surveys) but not be driven by them entirely
  • Test extensively before releasing. I am repeatedly surprised how many bugs there are in main features after a release (that is they show in main processes and not only in special constellations)
  • Measure, measure, measure. It is sensible to do A/B testing for all larger changes measuring the performance of previously defined KPIs (e.g. bounce rate). If the new version performs worse than the previous version the team should be brave enough to scrap the new developed version even if that means time and cost spent for developing it is lost without an output
  • If URLs change or cease to exist do an automatic redirect to the new URL
  • Even if the marketplace does not encourage the use of tools and automation, it should not ignore the fact that some investors will develop tools and workflows that helps them to speed up their monitoring and investment. The marketplace should consider how the changed impact and process might impact these. The very least that can be done, is to inform investors in advance of an upcoming major change.

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State of Selected P2P Lending Companies

wiseclerk

More than 2 years have passed, since P2P-Banking.com published the first overview table of p2p lending companies. At that time the focus was to create a comprehensive list and to get a perspective on the loan volumes.

Today I want to look at a smaller selection of p2p lending companies and do a rating on more factors than just loan volume. While I describe below what factors led to my rating, please note that the rating represents my personal opinion.

The table lists the companies in alphabetical order and gives:

New loan volume per month

This amount is in most cases retrieved from the last month(s) figures from the company websites (if they have statistic sections), and then converted into US$ at today’s currency exchange rates. In other cases it is a rough estimate by me based on volume figures published in media in the recent past. For CommunityLend I failed to find a per month figure (the total figure from launch to mid-February is here).

Brand/Press

Extend and tone of press coverage in the past months. Since a large share of new users is introduced to p2p lending services via media, positive media coverage is extremely important. Continued positive media coverage has helped some companies to associate positive values to their brand.

Growth/Marketing

This column especially rates if the new loan volume is growing continuously month after month. Furthermore it puts the absolute volume into perspective to the size of the market. It is obvious that absolute numbers in a country with a small population (e.g. Canada) will be much lower than those in a country with a large population (e.g. US). Furthermore it takes into account if the (online) marketing measures of the the company succeed in winning new borrowers and lenders (though in most markets lenders do not need to be actively acquired).

Sustainability

Sustainability rates a mix of several factors:

  1. ROIs for lenders / default rates
    Most p2p lending companies that failed in the past, did so as a result of high default rates which led to negative lender ROIs and caused massive lender churn
  2. Ability of company to raise new funding
    Most p2p lending companies still have to bridge a considerable time-span at their current growth rate before they become cash flow positive. The ability to raise more funding to finance continued operation is essential for their success
  3. Business model

User satisfaction

This rates the publicly voiced user opinion. Major factor are the comments in forums. To a lesser degree I took the user experience published in blog articles into account. The problem with lender experiences published in blogs often is that the writer is casting a positive image, since he earns commissions for newly referred customers through the affiliate program of the p2p lending site. Also these review are often written at the start of the lending activity at which point the lender’s ROI is naturally unharmed by the experience of defaults.


Empty fields: I had not enough information to rate these. E.g. with some of the new UK p2p lending companies I felt I had too few indicators to reach an opinion on the sustainability.

Availability of information also influenced the selection of companies. Due to language barriers including more services (e.g. the Japanese p2p lending companies) was not feasible for me.