Bandits in Matching Markets: Ideas and Proposals for Peer Lending

Motivated by recent applications of sequential decision making in matching markets, in this paper we attempt at formulating and abstracting market designs in peer lending. In the rest of this paper, what will follow is a paradigm to set the stage for how peer lending can be conceived from a matching market perspective with sequential design making embedded in it. We attempt at laying the stepping stones toward understanding how sequential decision making can be made more flexible in peer lending platforms and as a way to devise more fair and equitable outcomes for both borrowers and lenders. The goal of this paper is to provide some ideas on how and why lending platforms conceived from the perspective of matching markets can allow for incorporating fairness and equitable outcomes when we design lending platforms.