It's gotten a lot harder to borrow money from the raft offintech firms looking to bring online lending into themainstream.

Besieged by a wave of defaults after several years of rapidgrowth, the biggest online-lending platforms have been forced bybond investors to tighten underwriting standards. Social Finance,Prosper, LendingClub and Avant now demand higher average creditscores and offer shorter maturities to boost the quality of loansthey repackage into asset-backed securities.

The shift in the $30 billion market comes after a swarm ofborrower defaults in the past three years rattled ABS investors. Italso marks a coming of age of sorts for the fintech startups thatoffered cut-rate loans to build a customer base. Now, with ratesrising and a potential economic slowdown looming, the move towardhigher-quality from the push for quantity has taken on addedurgency.