Activity soars in China's P2P online lending jungle

Shanghai

SINCE China's government announced guidelines for websites that link individual investors with borrowers, no detailed rules have been announced, activity has soared to a record and defaults are rising.

Online peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms sold a record 119.6 billion yuan (S$26.7 billion) of financing products in October, according to researcher Yingcan Group. That's equivalent to 23 per cent of commercial bank lending in the month, up from 5 per cent a year ago. While authorities said in July that Internet finance companies must provide sufficient disclosure and send risk reminders to customers, regulators have yet to issue specific laws.