People In The Know

China's banking authorities have just finished soliciting public opinions on the proposed rules to regulate the peer to peer, or P2P, lending industry in the country.According to the draft rules, P2P platforms would be banned from providing guarantees to clients, and could only serve the role of matching investors and borrowers.P2P lenders would also be required to publish information on their websites on lending turnover, overdue loans and bad loan ratios.Furthermore, the rules would see them forbidden from selling wealth management products, insurance, funds or trust products.P2P, where ordinary consumers cut out banks and lend directly to each other over online platforms - has developed exponentially during the past two to three years.However, stats from Online Lending House, an industry website, show that of over 3800 Chinese P2P lenders surveyed at the end of 2015, nearly a third had run into difficulties.So what are the problems that are plaguing the P2P lending industry in China? How can we fi