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The Korean government drafted the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Online-linked Financing on P2P lending scheduled to take effect on August 27, 2020. It details entry requirements and regulations on business operation and investor protection. Under the draft, P2P lending businesses will be required to register with the Financial Services Commission, and different standards for minimum capital requirements are set according to P2P lenders' loan balances. For certain investment products (e.g., project financing), P2P lending business operators must disclose information to investors for a certain period prior to raising funds. Additionally, P2P lending to the same borrower will be limited to 7 percent of the P2P loan balance or KRW 7 billion.

European originations among peer-to-peer (P2P) and marketplace lending platforms soared by 80% in 2019 to €6.6bn, up from €3.6bn the previous year. The data paints the stark difference between the U.K.'s mature lending platforms, which grew a moderate 10.7% to £6.2bn in 2019, and Europe where the market remains in high-growth territory. It also means that Europe appears on the verge of overtaking the UK's P2P and marketplace lending, possibly as soon as 2020, with the combined value of the U.K. and EU figures being worth more than £12bn last year. Unlike the UK market however, nearly half of the European lending volume is dominated by a single player, with Latvian lending marketplace Mintos originating 45% of P2P loans in 2019 worth a combined €3bn. The caveat is that Mintos operates as a kind of "P2P of P2Ps" which inflates its figures.

An Arcane Research report explains how Bitcoin (BTC) peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges like Paxful and Localbitcoins are helping undocumented U.S. immigrants transfer money abroad using gift cards gift cards, since they circumvent banking limitations and KYC requirements. The gift cards are purchased by the immigrant at a local store. This gift card is then photographed, and the photo sent to a recipient abroad, who later sell those gift cards for BTC on a P2P exchange like Paxful or Localbitcoins. Then, they convert the BTC to local currency by selling the BTC to a buyer in the local market via one of the P2P-platforms there. https://research.arcane.no/blog/the-state-of-crypto-the-p2p-market

China's central Hunan province's financial regulator banned all P2P lenders. None of the 24 local P2P lending platform operators investigated by authorities complied with regulations.

Accumulated P2P loans in South Korea have surpassed 6 trillion won (US$5 billion). Outstanding P2P loans extended by 220 companies stood at 6.2 trillion won in June, compared with 4.7 trillion won at the end of last year, according to the data compiled by the Financial Supervisory Service.

Chinese police are investigating financial technology firm 51 Credit Card Inc for allegedly hiring debt collectors that used intimidation and harassment, part of a broader crackdown on the peer-to-peer lending (P2P) sector.

All Chinese P2P firms must clear outstanding loans within one year and become qualified small loan providers within two years. Regional small loan companies will have to meet a capital requirement of 50 million yuan, or 1 billion yuan to qualify the firm to operate nationally.

The new Chinese P2P monitoring system consists of two databases: an information disclosure and real-time transaction monitoring database.

At first, P2P lending returns appear remarkably high (adjusted for volatility), but growing evidence of adverse selection highlights how difficult it will be to sustain growth.

Binance has launched P2P trading functionality with BTC, ETH and USDT available for trading against Chinese Yuan. Access to P2P trading will be initially provided to Android users. We will slowly roll out this service to iOS and web interface users going forward.

UK-based Qardus has launched a Shariah-compliant P2P SME lending platform, offering unsecured loans of up to £100,000 in the form of a "murabahah," which is a commodity and a type of Islamic financing structure through which buyers and sellers both agree to the cost and mark-up of a particular asset. Qardus charges borrowers a 2 to 5% fee, and borrowers are required to have been operating a business for three years or more, and they must have a turnover or assets worth £100,000. Also, borrowers must operate in "recession-proof" industries including food and beverages, food manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.

Billions of pounds are tied up in the U.K.'s peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, which put savers looking for a better return on their cash in touch with individuals or small businesses looking for a loan. This year, when the Covid-19 outbreak started escalating, many of the P2P sites experienced a surge in the numbers of customers wanting to liquidate their investments and withdraw their cash, and such customers are facing long waits. For example, pre-crisis, Ratesetter generally took only one day to return cash to investors seeking their money back, but it is currently still processing customer withdrawal requests that were made as far back as mid-March, when withdrawal requests peaked.

The IMF published a paper that examines how the growing presence of Fintech firms affects the performance of traditional financial institutions. The findings point to a negative impact on profitability, primarily due to a reduction in interest income and a rise in operational costs. Although established financial institutions have tried to diversify their revenue streams, these efforts have proven inadequate to offset the losses associated with increased competition from Fintech firms. The study also reveals that various Fintech business models, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending and balance sheet lending, have varying effects on financial institutions. Cooperative banks experience more significant profit deterioration under both models, whereas (larger) commercial banks appear to benefit from partnerships with P2P platforms, as evidenced by an increase in non-interest income. Furthermore, the findings suggest that Fintech presence has a disproportionately larger adverse effect on banks in countries with more competitive, profitable, and developed financial systems. Interestingly, however, traditional financial institutions in countries with stronger regulatory frameworks appear to benefit from the expanding influence of Fintech firms.

P2P investors who want access to their money have been hit by withdrawal restrictions and additional fees as the coronavirus pandemic causes a crunch for the sector. Two of the country's biggest platforms, Funding Circle and Assetz Capital, have introduced new limits for investors.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) insurance platform Ooniq has completed a year-long of testing within the Bank of Lithuania's regulatory sandbox. The platform allows its members to form groups of peers with similar interests and protect themselves against losses by pooling funds for this purpose. Group members make their own decisions on loss compensation. If funds are still available thereafter, they are returned to group members. A sense of community could encourage its members to jointly reduce risks and losses and thus protect themselves against risks in a cheaper way.

Three months after Nigeria's central bank restricted financial institutions from dealing with anything crypto-related, peer-to-peer (P2P) Bitcoin trading in the country is having a heyday. According to analytics platform UsefulTulips, Bitcoin P2P trading in Nigeria has surged by 27% since restrictions were introduced by the country's central bank (CBN).

The Indonesian Fintech Lenders Association has partnered with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) to open a Fintech Data Centre to review the P2P lending industry.

According to a report by from the office of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, fraud and scams are a growing problem on peer-to-peer (P2P) payment service Zelle, and the banks that run the platform are not refunding the vast majority of defrauded consumers, breaking their promises to their customers and potentially violating federal law. A response by the industry acknowledged that Zelle,  like every instant P2P payment service, is not entirely free from those who seek to defraud users, but expanding the bank liability framework would have adverse impacts on consumers choice, the cost of the service, and on small financial institutions for whom the costs related to the potential for unlimited liability would be too onerous.

According to McKinsey, digital payment transactions grew rapidly in emerging markets during the past two years, as the pandemic accelerated shifts to contactless payments and e-commerce. E-wallets proliferated, real-time account-to-account transfers took off, and industry players formed new partnerships to access capabilities and broaden their customer base. Some of the fastest growth occurred in Africa and Southeast Asia, where low banking penetration gives payments providers opportunities to capture untapped potential and reach underserved populations... Margins for digital payments providers are already wafer thin and are likely to be eroded further by competitive intensity and declining fees. In many cases, payments are more a means to cross-sell other products than a profit center in their own right. Some services, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, are usually offered to users for free in most markets. In Brazil, for instance, Pix is pushing margins down by offering P2P payments for free and person-to-merchant (P2M) payments at low cost.

The NBER published a paper develops a dynamic model of technology adoption featuring strategic complementarities: the benefits of usage increase with the number of adopters. It studies the diffusion of new means of payments, where such complementarities are pervasive. It shows that complementarities give rise to multiple equilibria, suboptimal allocations, and study the planner's problem. The model generates gradualism in adoption, as individuals optimally wait for others to adopt before doing so. It applies the theory to the adoption of SINPE, an electronic peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app developed by the Central Bank of Costa Rica. A calibrated version of the model shows that the optimal subsidy pushes the economy to universal adoption.