The quest of peer-to-peer lending applications marketing to small and medium enterprises: Assessing intention to recommend

This study aims to determine the effect of peer-to-peer lending (P2PL) on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) underpinned by the theory of planned behavior and asses its impact on the borrower’s intention to recommend such a platform. This paper used a quantitative survey method with partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the data collected through a questionnaire. The data were obtained from 395 respondents who are entrepreneurs or business leaders in SMEs in Indonesia and had experience in borrowing business loan funds from the P2PL apps. The structural questionnaire was distributed from January to May 2022. The results of this study indicate that the three core components of the theory of planned behavior (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) can significantly influence the intention to continue usage and the intention to recommend with an R-squared value of 0.626, which indicates a meaningful explanatory power. The results proved that perceived benefits and risk and electronic word-of-mouth are the antecedents with significant influence. Moreover, this study provides new insights into how self-efficacy and mental accounting can influence perceived behavioral control. These findings could suggest that P2PL management should be more innovative in developing effective marketing strategies based on the traits and borrower’s points of view. Particularly, they could emphasize customer segmentation based on mental accounting.