China clamps down on online micro lending

Beijing

CHINA took steps to rein in the rapidly growing and lightly regulated market for online micro-lenders in the government's latest crackdown on Internet finance, sending shares of US-listed Chinese financial firms into a tailspin.

A top-level Chinese government body issued an urgent notice on Tuesday to provincial governments, urging them to suspend regulatory approval for the setting up of new Internet micro-lenders, sources who had seen the notice told Reuters.