Crowdlending as a financing alternative for MSMEs in Peru

Abstract

The current context in which companies operate has meant that financing is offered in a different way than the traditional one. Technology has made investment and financing alternatives appear that are aimed at reducing financial costs and access to credit by MSMEs in Peru and Latin America. The objective of this research was to establish if the MSMEs of the Piura Region, Peru, are willing to demand financing through Crowdlending. The hypothesis that was raised was aimed at confirming that MSMEs are willing to demand financing through Crowdlending. To test this hypothesis, 382 surveys were applied to MSMEs from the different provinces of the Piura Region. The research was quantitative, descriptive and longitudinal. The perceptions of MSME entrepreneurs regarding Crowdlending were collected from the perspective of financial costs, the speed of access to credit and the flexibility of credit conditions. Ignorance of these financing alternatives and distrust in virtual transactions could have conditioned the answers. The results showed that the majority of entrepreneurs are willing to demand financing through Crowdlending, despite the fact that they perceive that access to credit would be slow, the financial cost low and that there would be high flexibility in the credit conditions to be demanded.