As a result of the massive digitalisation of both socio-economic interactions and financial transactions, we observe data as an emerging asset class. As soon as data transforms into a tradable asset, one of the fundamental questions in Finance relates to understanding its valuation principles. As we argue, data as an asset class has two distinctive, yet dependent factors that drive its valuation, namely (1) the raw data (i.e. structured, tangible, digitised mean of communication and information distribution) and (2) the signal (i.e. the information that is unstructured, perceived) that the raw data carries, and which is meaningful for an (trading) action. With: Denitsa Stefanova, University of Luxembourg

Marketplace lending is a successful example for financial disintermediation. It provides an alternative distribution channel for the profit that was traditionally captured by crediting institutions. It is attracting the attention of institutional investors rapidly. Do we witness an outstanding performance that could justify the existence of a new alternative asset class for institutions? Is it worth investing into portfolios of household debts?

With: Kalle Rinne (Mandatum Fund Management S.A), Joshua Pollet (Gies College of Business, University of Illinois) and Roman Kräussl (Bayes Business School, City University London)

Marketplace lending platforms attract borrowers' interests of different household characteristics. They provide a fast way of credit, often with better conditions as opposed to the traditional lenders. Moreover, marketplace lenders would embrace individual borrowers with very poor credit history (i.e. youngsters) or with subprime credit scores (i.e. low-income households), too, whereas traditional lenders would not. We observe therefore a continuous increase of loan volumes as well as of the number of issued loans. To what extend do these lending platforms enhance debt management competences of households? Would households use marketplace lending as an alternative channel to prove their creditability, thus boost their credit scores?

With: Riccardo Calcagno, Polytechnic University of Turin

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