Willingness to Lend through a P2P platform.

  • Dear all,

    I am Jolene Yong a final year student from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh undertaking MA Business and Finance course. I am currently conducting a research on the willingness of Malaysian lenders to lend through a P2P intermediary. I chose this topic as my final year research as it gives insight to the current financing industry in Malaysia, an area of study of which I am interested as I plan to join the financial sector when I graduate.
    This research will contribute to the current understanding of a lender’s behaviour of which will be a useful insight to current and prospective investors.

    It would be of great help if you could complete this 5 minutes survey (https://goo.gl/forms/40oZ1fYKfY2UKkEu1).
    If you have any queries on this research, feel free to contact me at cy8@hw.ac.uk

    Thank you for your responses! (:

  • @jolene
    Done and I wonder if you have done the content validity test and pilot study? Below are few I would like to feedback on your questionnaire design:

    1. The word "borrower" will confuse the participants as whether it is referring the P2P Operators or the Opportunities (Examples of P2P Operators are Funding Society, Fundaztic ..etc, and example of Opportunities are Business or Actual Borrowers whom will receive the money as financial supports run the business). Generally for public, we will assume the later, which is not as you define.

    2. As an experienced P2P Investor, I still do not understand your this question : "Information on transactions are usually protected from being altered or destroyed during a transaction on the internet through the P2P intermediary I use", and wonder what you wish to gather from this question.

    3. "P2P intermediary" should be used or "P2P Platform"? I see you use both of them in different questions.

    4. Referring your question: "I have been using P2P intermediary lending services for a long time (one year or more)". Please note the Security Commission of Malaysia just approved the first 6 P2P Operators in Nov 2016, the time when you can hardly find any Malaysians know of such investment, by the time these P2P Operators carried out their marketing creating public awareness, let's say they took 6 months, the P2P just started to get warm up in May 2017, that is less than one 1 year from today. Thus I think a more appropriate formation of the question is to let participants choose duration of months how long they have been investing in P2P.

    5. Referring your question: "I use P2P intermediaries' lending services several times a month.", How do a participant quantify if he or she is using the Auto-Invest features that one do not need to check out the platform to initiate the new investment? There is a difference between Trader and Investor: Trader spends most of the time in a day watching the opportunities and actively trade to gain the most return, Investor design an investment system or plan target to achieve a clear written financial goals, execute the opportunities in auto-mode, and then spend most of his time doing what he likes in life.

    Thanks and good luck in your research.

  • @Loh
    Thank you for your feedback! Yes, I have pilot tested it, however, it may have been a little biased. To answer the following questions:

    1. I've amended it to P2P intermediaries.

    2. The question regards the safety of the P2P platform, as to whether information about the transactions (i.e investments) are leaked or altered (perhaps due to hacking).

    3. I've amended them all to P2P intermediary. Thank you for pointing it out

    4. My initial thoughts were that some investors may have already invested abroad through P2P intermediaries. However, I have amended it as to your suggestion (i.e let respondents choose their own duration).

    5. I understand that some P2P intermediaries have the auto-invest feature, however, it is not clear as to whether all others have the same function. However, I have amended the question.

    Thank you so much for taking your time to complete my questionnaire and the insightful feedback you've given! I appreciate it very much! (:

    If you know of any other investors who might be able to fill in the questionnaire, please do help spread the word!

  • @jolene One suggestion may be helpful in your research process may be:

    1. Use your university letterhead (now can just use the graphic and design your own), write the letter /e-mail to all 6 P2P Operators about your study and also describe how your study is going to beneficial to them for their marketing plan. You shall share your findings with them, credit them in your research paper. In return, they need to provide assistance to you, like e-blast your survey link to their respective customer database (they will not provide you the contacts or email but they can send the link on your behalf).

    2. Because you need to know more about the P2P and tell them you believe (even you don't) it is a good investment vehicles for Malaysians, you should also try your luck to request to ask to visit all these 6 P2P Operator offices and have a chit chat or some sort simple discussion (just dont make it a qualitative study will do) with their CEOs, you will get the most insider information than anyone on P2P!

    3. When you introduce yourself to the corporate leaders, try to downplay that you are merely a student, try to introduce or project yourself as a researcher from your esteemed university (yes you are a student but tell them you are chosen by your university to carry out the research), and tell them that you believe the research result will provide a greater insight to the industry players on P2P and thus increase the financial or investing literacy among Malaysians which is very much needed.

    Good luck.

  • @Loh
    Thanks for the suggestions!

    1. I've emailed the 6 P2P platforms listed on the SC, however, none were successful. One of them is by Funding Societies, who introduced me to this forum. The other two informed me that they are unable to assist me in sending out the questionnaires.

    2. It is regretful that I am unable to complete task two and three as I am completing my studies overseas.

    Nevertheless, thank you for your constructive responses! (:

  • Contributor

    @jolene done.
    It is sad that the other p2p companies are not more receptive towards helping you out with the survey. The "collective good" thinking is lacking here. FS seems to be different. Which is why I love this forum, it is more open and everyone can have their own voice.

    Loh had some really insightful points.
    Would you be okay with sharing the results to the forum members, as I think we will all be interested to know the general sentiment of the p2p industry in malaysia.

    Also, if you could give us a comparison of how the responses are from people in malaysia, vs the other side of the world, like UK, scotland etc, it would be really helpful.

  • @jolene done

  • @jonhan
    Thank you for your response! It would be a great pleasure for me to share the results with the forum members. (:

  • @Rajni123
    Thank you! (:

  • @jolene hey jolene, how is your research coming along?

  • @Rajni123 Hi Rajni, I have insufficient respondents unfortunately. I'm still waiting for further responses to carry out my research. Do you have any friends who are into P2P that could help me out by answering the survey? Thanks!

  • Financial Bloggers

    @jolene I've submitted my survey. Hope it helps :)

  • @bursagoinglong thank you! (:

