How Much Would It Cost to Make a P2P Lending Platform?

Getting a bank loan is not easy for millions of people. The world’s unbanked population is 1.4 billion, with billions more remaining underbanked. Even in the USA, 5%+ of households remain totally unbanked, and over 25% more are underbanked, according to the FDIC report. These figures translate into 63+ million American adults who don’t have access to traditional finance. 

What does this mean for FinTech businesses?

• You can access a huge customer base by offering more loyal and flexible financing services than traditional banking does. 
• You can create a steady, lucrative revenue stream in the FinTech industry by offering safe P2P lending solutions. 
• Entering a P2P market niche is relatively easy today, with the basic requirement of a P2P lending app/platform and a smart credit risk assessment mechanism that minimizes lenders’ risks.

You can join the rising digital finance industry and the emerging P2P lending sector with a technically superior, safe solution, which has immense potential amid the changing financial sector. As of 2021, P2P lending had an $83+ billion market size and is estimated to continue growing at a CAGR of 29.7% in the coming years. 

Statista experts project P2P lending to exceed 1 trillion USD by 2050. The P2P projects have made finance more accessible and affordable to billions, and the sector is likely to enjoy quicker growth with the mass adoption of innovative technologies. 

Here we examine the ins and outs of the P2P lending business to let you make an informed decision on building your own peer to peer lending software for users. We also provide a detailed breakdown of such a project’s cost and factors to consider at all stages.

Read on to get equipped with all vital data on P2P financing and get a new revenue stream for yourself. 

Key advantages and disadvantages of peer-to-peer lending platforms 

The emergence of P2P lending has opened many doors to people with scarce access to traditional finance. However, it’s a sector with its own specifics and nuances, so one shouldn’t consider it a panacea to all financial needs. 

Here is an overview of the pros and cons you should know before using or launching P2P lending services.  

Advantages 

• Lower interest rates, greater returns. The P2P market is highly competitive, so providers set minimal interest rates for lenders to retain loyal clientele. Thus, as a business owner, you can enjoy greater returns by giving your users a well-priced P2P lending service package.   
• More democratic access to finance. P2P lending is more accessible to people with different economic statuses. Fewer documents are required to get a loan, giving previously underbanked and unbanked people easy access to funds.  
• Thorough assessment. Most P2P platforms operate on blockchain and use cutting-edge analytical tools, so they can perform smart creditworthiness assessments with a larger number of factors than a regular balance scorecard.
• Greater flexibility. Compared to traditional banks, you can enjoy a broader variety of credit products and terms at P2P organizations. 

Disadvantages 

• Credit risk. Lenders in the P2P market need to tolerate higher credit risks because they give money to high-risk consumers. Thus, it is vital to include these elevated risks in the business model.
• Legislative loopholes. FinTech is a developing industry that faces much legal resistance in many jurisdictions. Before launching a P2P platform, you need to choose all regulations and ensure that you don’t break the law.

Why is it a wise decision to invest in a P2P lending app? 

There are many factors in favor of joining this rapidly expanding FinTech market niche. 

• The P2P lending market was only $83+ billion in 2021, but its size is expected to reach $700+ billion by 2030. 
• As of 2020, 126+ million Americans were using P2P lending apps. According to LendingTree research, 84% of consumers have tried P2P lending already, and 44% use them at least once a week. 
• Africa is the largest P2P lending market, with over 70% of payments (over $1 trillion) made by clients from African countries.

As you can see, the pace of P2P market growth is quick. It’s currently dominated by giants like PayPal, Venmo, and Google Pay, but more P2P lending apps are entering the market every day to make it more competitive and diversified. 

The good news is that you can also build an attractive and feature-rich peer to peer loan app and grab a fair share of this lucrative market. Let’s find out how it works. 

Crucial things to consider before developing a money lending app 

Building a secured P2P lending app is a multi-stage process that goes far beyond software creation. Here are the preparatory steps every FinTech startup should take. 

• Adherence to government rules and regulations. Since your P2P lending software provides financial services, you should ensure that it meets all local regulations and licensing requirements. This way, you will avoid legal trouble and fines, let alone the closure of your project by law enforcement. 
• Collaboration with banks. Working with traditional financial institutions is unavoidable even in P2P lending, as clients need to deposit and withdraw money somehow. Study the list of local banks and international finance operators to find the best partner for payment processing. 
• Borrower’s verification process. Rigorous user verification is part and parcel of secure P2P loan apps, so you should include the KYC/AML policy. The standard verification steps include state-issued ID verification, phone number check, bank account validation, and tax documentation checks. 
• GDPR compliance. GDPR is an overarching regulation protecting user data across the EU. Even if you operate beyond the EU borders, it’s better to ensure GDPR compliance, as some of your users can be from the EU or conduct transactions to and from the EU, thus making you eligible.  
• PCI DSS certification. As your clients are likely to use credit and debit cards when operating your app, you must ensure compliance with the PCI DSS security control policies and procedures.

How does a P2P loan app work? 

Let’s take a sneak peek into the operations of a peer to peer lending app to clarify what it takes to build and operate one. 

1. Borrowers and lenders sign up for a P2P app and create their accounts. 
2. Borrower fills out the form with their banking details, occupation, and regular income data to enable lenders and smart creditworthiness assessment algorithms to evaluate their risk levels. 
3. Lenders also link their bank accounts to the system and pick the loan products they’re ready to provide. 
4. Borrowers apply for loans provided by lenders. 
5. Lenders review applications and decide on who they will award the loan to. 
6. Once the loan gets approved, the borrower gets the money on the predetermined terms to their bank account. 

All data about terms, dates of payment, and interest rates are conveniently displayed in the users’ profiles. Both lenders and borrowers track their active loans and receive notifications about status changes. Here is a figure visualizing the process of p2p lending. 

Cost to create a loan lending mobile app in 2022 

Now, let’s boil it down to features and numbers – what does a lending app include, and how much would it cost to create a P2P lending platform? 

The bare minimum your P2P lending app would need to operate safely and deliver the needed services to users is: 

• A website 
• A login/signup function 
• User profile 
• A user dashboard (different for borrowers and lenders) 
• Connectivity with banks 
• Credit score calculation 
• Document processing 
• Loan management 

However, these features mostly relate to the platform’s front-end part. The app’s back end is also an essential part of the process. It’s much harder to estimate the cost of back-end development because a blockchain-powered P2P lending app (a DeFi app) is serverless, so it has a distinct cost breakdown than a traditional digital app would have.

Here is a calculation of hours and rates for this task you may count on. We’ve taken an average breakdown of hours necessary for P2P loan development and have added the rates you may get from a low-cost, medium-cost, and high-cost dev provider in different parts of the world. 

Thus, based on such a rough estimate, the cost to create a P2P lending platform ranges from $45,000 to $100,000+ for a P2P lending app. 

Negotiate every aspect of the development scope with your dev agency to determine the budget before starting the work. Also, it’s critical to discuss all revisions and additions underway to understand what unexpected costs and hidden fees you can encounter in the process. 

How to make profit from money lending app? 

A typical concern of money lenders software creators is the ability to make money on such a project. As a rule, P2P app owners get revenue from the origination and transaction fees. 

Origination Fees 

As a provider of secured peer to peer lending services, you can set a fixed or dynamic origination fee deducted from every allocated loan. As a rule, the obligation to pay the fee lies on the borrower. Thus, when you get $1,000 from a P2P lender, the platform sets a 5% fee, and you’re likely to get only $950 to your account, repaying the full sum ($1,000). 

Transaction Fees 

Transaction fees are charged for all transactions on the P2P platform, which operates as a provider of secure, instant transactions. Besides, the transaction fee is usually charged from the lender after the borrower successfully covers the entire loan. 

Conclusion 

As our review suggests, P2P lending is a lucrative business with a moderate entry barrier in the form of local regulatory compliance and the cost of building a platform for P2P operations. 

With the rapid growth of this market and the rising number of regular P2P lending users, this business niche is definitely worth considering as a source of steady income for projects of all sizes.