Client Protection in Digital Financial Services: A Comparative Legal Analysis of Deposit-Based Lending and Peer-to-Peer Lending in the European Union and Indonesia

As the Digital Financial Services (DFS)-based lending sector has gained unprecedented importance, demands for client protection have risen. Despite the growing role of DFS-based lending in both emerging and advanced economies, financial law researchers have paid little attention to assessing the risks of DFS-based lending, particularly those in connection with violations of client rights and welfare. Fiduciary risk, insolvency risk, information risk, and technology risk, and their respective legal mitigation, are the focus of this dissertation. This doctoral research examines how regulation shall cope with such risks to have occurred in various fintech lending sectors in different institutional and cultural contexts. The work analyzes which risks are effectively mitigated by existing regulations, which gaps possibly exist in client protection frameworks in either of the two regions, which specific regulation may improve client protection, and whether DFS-based lending providers in regions with a particular regulatory framework serve their clients better.