Lately, a paper titled "Venture Capital Certification and Customer Response: Evidence from P2P Lending Platforms” authored by the research team led by Prof. Liao Li and Assistant Prof. Wang Zhengwei from PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University (PBCSF) was accepted in the Journal of Corporate Finance, an international mainstream journal of finance. It is the first academic paper on China’s P2P lending sector that was accepted by a prestigious international journal of finance.

The paper mainly focuses on whether venture capital (VC) provides certification to  online lenders by investing in P2P lending platforms. Research on this issue is of particular value against the once-explosive growth of the domestic P2P lending industry despite the spotty quality of P2P lending platforms.

The paper notes that both the number of lenders and the turnover of these platforms increased notably once information about VC was released. Furthermore, the higher reputation a VC firm has, or the greater information asymmetry between P2P lending platforms and lenders, the stronger the effect. It also finds that the P2P lending platforms that obtained VC had a lower probability of becoming problematic platforms. The above findings indicate that VC provided a certification role regarding platform quality to P2P lenders.

Meanwhile, the paper also provides a new perspective on how to understand the certification role played by VC. Previous works was mainly on VC’s certification role provided to prospective equity investors in enterprises. This paper, however, extends further to cover enterprise customers, which will help us understand VC’s certification role in a more all-round manner.

Introduction to the Authors

Liao Li, Executive Associate Dean of Tsinghua PBCSF, Chair Professor of Finance, Deputy Chair of the National Institute of Financial Research, Tsinghua University, Chair of the Institute for Fintech Research, Tsinghua University, Chief Editor of Tsinghua Financial Review; specialized in research on Internet finance and corporate finance.

Wang Zhengwei, Associate Dean of Tsinghua PBCSF, Assistant Professor, Deputy Director of Research Center for Intelligent Finance; specialized in research on fintech, individual and family financial decision making, corporate finance, etc.

Xiang Hongyu, a postdoctoral researcher of Tsinghua PBCSF; graduated from Zhejiang University with a bachelor’s degree in science in 2011; received a master’s degree in applied economics from Tsinghua University in 2014; obtained a doctor’s degree in applied economics from Tsinghua University in 2019; specialized in research on fintech and household finance.

Emma Li, a lecturer of Deakin University, Australia; graduated from the University of Melbourne with a doctor’s degree in 2017; specialized in research on financial intermediaries, corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance and equity crowdfunding.