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When Chinese peer-to-peer lending platform Hengjin Dai launched last June, it used a three-day promotion to lure investors. Just 12 hours later its website went dark.
In a similar case the 22-year-old founder of Boliya, another P2P platform, whom state TV had featured as a model young entrepreneur, suddenly vanished.
Police in Chengdu, the capital city of western Sichuan province, told the Financial Times they were investigating the case but declined to provide further details. Local media quoted a company employee saying they owed investors substantial sums.
Even as P2P lending has grown dramatically in China over the past year, and venture investors have flocked in, analysts say that the industry has become a breeding ground for fly-by-night operators who once inhabited the world of informal lending.
More than 136,000 people per day on average were involved in China’s P2P industry — as lenders or borrowers — in December last year according to figures from P2P001.com, a website that tracks the industry. That was more than triple the 39,000 in January. Loans outstanding reached Rmb139bn ($22bn) by year-end.
But Chinese media is rife with tales of mismanagement, hacker attacks and allegations of fraud.
Users reported problems with 275 separate P2P platforms in 2014 out of a total of 1,575, according to statistics from Wangdaizhijia, another industry website, based on reports from users. Another 32 have emerged so far in January this year.
Of the 275 problem platforms reported in 2014, 60 were reported to have owners who ran away and 71 were labelled as “scams”. Some platforms fell into both categories. Most other problems involved users unable to withdraw cash from their accounts.
But analysts say the lack of regulation has enabled the industry to deliver relatively low-cost loans to an increasing number of small businesses that struggle to access finance from banks, corporate bonds, and other traditional channels.
“P2P lacks meaningful regulation at the moment, but the groups that these platforms serve are also those that traditional, standardised financial institutions have neglected,” says Kang Xiaomi, analyst at P2P001.com.
“Setting aside the outright scams, and platforms raising money for their own use, and other fake P2P platforms, there are some that operate very good, standardised platforms.”
While P2P platforms in the US are increasingly drawing in institutional funds, China’s online lending industry is still overwhelmingly the province of retail investors seeking higher returns than those available on traditional bank deposits.
The industry is also tapping into established informal financing networks that have long been the primary source of funding for small businesses. Businesses that once turned to family, friends and cash-rich local entrepreneurs for high-interest loans can now access a more competitive market.
In 2012 the coastal city of Wenzhou — known for its small factories, pictured, and the less-regulated lending networks that serve them — established a financial-reform zone intended to bring private lending out of the shadows and expand financing options for small firms.
The move came after Wenzhou experienced a damaging chain of defaults on informal loans in 2011. While economists lauded the goals of the pilot project, its impact has been minimal.
Meanwhile, for all its problems, analysts say that P2P firms have done more to increase standardisation and lower costs of informal lending than the state-led approach used in Wenzhou.
“Compared to private lending, P2P offers borrowers a higher quality, transparent, convenient and personalised financial service,” says Ms Kang.
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