Agent-Based Simulation of Peerto-Peer Lending Ecosystems: FinTech Innovation, Regulatory Intervention, and Digital Economy Impacts

The rapid growth of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms has reshaped credit intermediation in the digital economy, yet it has simultaneously introduced new forms of systemic risk, information asymmetry, and regulatory challenges. This study develops an agent-based simulation to analyze the dynamic interactions among heterogeneous borrowers, lenders, platforms, and regulators within a P2P lending ecosystem. Using repeated Monte Carlo experiments, the model evaluates how alternative regulatory regimes and platform governance strategies influence system stability, market efficiency, financial inclusion, and digital economy spillovers. The results show that laissez-faire regimes generate the highest short-term credit expansion, with a credit volume index exceeding 340 on average, but also exhibit elevated default rates above 14 percent and pronounced volatility due to clustered borrower failures. In contrast, moderate regulatory intervention reduces average default rates to approximately 9–10 percent while maintaining relatively high fundingto-application ratios around 0.74, indicating a favorable balance between growth and resilience. Tight supervision further suppresses default rates below 7 percent but significantly constrains credit volume and borrower participation. Platform-level analysis reveals that high information disclosure improves allocative efficiency, increases sustained funding ratios to nearly 0.80, and reduces lender return dispersion by more than 30 percent compared to low-disclosure regimes. However, increased financial inclusion under loose screening policies is associated with a nonlinear rise in default risk, confirming a structural trade-off between access and stability. At the macro level, the simulation demonstrates that P2P lending acts as a credit transmission channel to the digital economy, where moderate regulation produces the most persistent and inclusive credit impulse, supporting digitally enabled small and medium enterprises without inducing boom–bust cycles. Overall, the findings highlight that adaptive regulation and transparent platform governance are critical for transforming FinTech-driven credit innovation into sustainable digital economic growth. The study contributes a policy-relevant computational framework for evaluating FinTech ecosystems beyond static empirical analysis.