P2P online lending companies in China have been all but squeezed out of existence following a crackdown on the once-flourishing sector due to concerns over widespread fraud issues.
Liu Fushou (刘福寿), chief lawyer of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), announced on 6 November that the number of P2P online lending organisations actually operating in China had fallen to just three, as compared to around 5,000 during the sector’s peak period.
According to the “2020 Financial Stability Report” (2020金融稳定报告) as of the end of the first half of 2020 the number of P2P online lending platforms in China had fallen to 29.
Liu said that disposal of P2P online lending had accelerated, and that the “era of wild growth in online finance as represented by P2P has gone and will not return.”
China issued the draft version of strict new regulations governing online micro-loan operations on 2 November, in a move that many analysts believe to be the decisive factor behind the suspension of the USD$36 billion IPO of fintech giant Ant Group on the Shanghai and Hong Kong bourses.
