China's P2P lenders target students

Beijing

ACROSS college campuses in China, a small army of marketers is recruiting students to borrow money at interest rates many times that charged by the nation's banks.

Those without a credit history or parental approval can borrow money to buy a smartphone, pay for holidays, or get the latest sneakers through a raft of apps such as Fenqile. The market leader, whose name literally means Happy Installment Payments, has 50,000 part-time marketers across more than 3,000 universities and proudly touts the slogan "Wait no more; love what I love." Welcome to the regulatory grey area where peer-to-peer lending meets e-commerce in China.