Blockchain and the future of credit: an overview of P2P platforms and their potential impacts

Blockchain-based infrastructures are increasingly positioned as catalysts for the future of credit, particularly through peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms that can reduce intermediation frictions and broaden access. However, inclusive P2P lending remains fragile without strong governance mechanisms to mitigate identity fraud, information asymmetry, and default risk. This study develops an implementation-oriented blueprint for a blockchain-enabled P2P lending fintech by integrating three literature strands—fintech/P2P lending, blockchain and smart contracts, and tokenization—and translating their combined implications into early-stage system specifications. Following a System Development Life Cycle perspective focused on requirements analysis and system design, we formalize actors, business rules, data objects, and the end-to-end lending lifecycle using Unified Modeling Language (UML) artifacts. The resulting workflow specifies where key trust controls enter the process (e.g., KYC gates, risk assessment prior to matching, secure transaction logging, and smart-contract execution of disbursement and repayment), thereby enabling traceability from conceptual assumptions to verifiable operational steps. The contribution is not an empirical evaluation, but a structured design framework that supports prototyping, testing, and policy-relevant discussions of consumer protection, auditability, and market integrity in decentralized credit infrastructures.