THE IMPACT OF MODERN TECHNOLOGIES ON THE BUSINESS LENDING MARKET

Abstract

Access to debt financing remains one of the most binding constraints on the growth of enterprises, and especially of small and medium-sized businesses, whose financing gap in emerging markets is measured in trillions of dollars. Traditional bank lending technology, built around collateral, audited financial statements and manual underwriting, is poorly suited to small, short-term and high-frequency credit needs: the fixed cost of assessing a borrower makes small business loans economically unattractive for banks, while long decision cycles conflict with the workingcapital rhythms of modern commerce. Over the past decade, a cluster of digital technologies has begun to reshape this market fundamentally. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have turned credit scoring from a static, bureaudriven procedure into a dynamic assessment based on real-time behavioral and transactional data; alternative data sources and digital footprints allow lenders to evaluate borrowers with thin or non-existent credit files; open banking interfaces give third parties regulated access to account information and payment initiation; embedded lending integrates credit directly into e-commerce platforms, marketplaces and business software; and cloud-based lending platforms automate the entire loan lifecycle from origination to servicing. The relevance of this study stems from the speed and scale of these changes, from their uneven and still poorly systematized effects on the structure and competitive landscape of the business lending market, and from the launch of regulated open banking in Ukraine, which creates a new institutional environment for lending to domestic enterprises under wartime constraints. The article discusses the composition and functional roles of the key technologies transforming business lending, the channels through which they affect the cost, speed and inclusiveness of credit, the emerging redistribution of roles between banks, fintech companies and non-financial platforms, the new categories of risk that accompany algorithmic and platform-based lending, and the implications of these global trends for the development of the Ukrainian market of business credit.