Incentive mechanism to prevent moral hazard in online supply chain finance

Abstract

With e-commerce developing rapidly, banks have begun to cooperate with online platform operators to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, this process engenders its own unique financial risks. This study highlights and investigates the risks in a four-party supply chain that include a third-party logistics provider, a bank, a B2B platform operator, and SMEs. In an asymmetric information setting, the collusion mechanisms in this four-party online supply chain are also explored. Subsequently, a two-part incentive contract is designed that can reduce the moral hazard faced by the banks while addressing the trade-off between the payments to the platform operator for better credit rating information and the payments to the third-party logistics provider for supervising collateral storage. For further confirmation, a numerical analysis is presented. The results indicate that based on a suitable capital coefficient, the two-part incentive contract may prevent moral hazard in online supply chains. Furthermore, when the line of credit is high, the bank must increase the incentives for the B2B platform operator to avoid default risk and decrease the incentives for 3PL.