The number of regularly operating peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms in China has continued to tumble to record lows at the end of 2018 amidst heightened scrutiny from regulators.
Data from Rong360 indicates that as of the end of December last year China was host to 1082 regularly operating P2P platforms, for a decline of 703, or 39.38%, compared to the figure of 1785 for the end of 2017.
Beijing is now host to 282 P2P lending platforms, Guangdong 266, Shanghai 177 and Zhejiang province 113.
July saw a surge in the number of problem P2P platforms exposed, with the figure rising to 275 in total for the month, or an average of around 9 per day. This figure subsequently saw marked decline to around 30 for the fourth quarter of 2018.
Total transaction value for China’s online lending platforms was 93.945 billion yuan for December 2018.
For Shanghai transactions were worth 30.22 billion yuan, for an increase of 7.71% compared to the previous month; for Guangdong province it was 26.08 billion yuan, for a rise of 3.61% compared to November, while for Beijing and Zhejiang province the monthly transaction values were 21.71 billion yuan and 11.23 billion yuan, for gains of 6.08% and 4.08% respectively.
Analysts have forecast that China’s crackdown on P2P lending could cull as much as 70% of active platforms, and sparing only several hundred by the end of 2019.
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