Lesson 4 of 6
Platform lending: marketplaces and balance-sheet lenders
A lending platform either matches borrowers with investors and earns fees, or lends from its own balance sheet and earns a margin. The two look alike to the borrower but behave differently when losses rise, when investors leave and when the platform itself fails.
Published 12 October 2026 · Listen to this lesson
In this lesson
- Two ways to run a platform
- How each earns: a worked example
- How large, and where
- When a marketplace becomes a balance sheet
- Risks for stability and for investors
- How rules respond: one example