Why are they borrowing: 51%: to accumulate credit worthiness 20%: meet basic needs 9%: fund major purchases of consumer durables
So seems to cover some of your anecdotal experience of the space. I understand the P2P business spreading out the risk by subdividing large investments from lenders into these various risk pools, but from a lender's perspective I can't imagine the return is worth it on one of these platforms.
I'd imagine the P2P platform itself would take a large cut probably with initial borrowing costs, plus a percentage of any interest rate payback.
Just seems like there'd be much better ROI in other investments than this type of lending ( as a lender ). Though, I'm sure the P2P businesses are making a nice profit by fleecing these types of borrowers at every step.