The peak body for China’s online finance sector has called for heightened scrutiny of credit extended to consumers for medical cosmetic procedures.
The National Internet Finance Association of China (NIFA) issued the “Initiative for Standardising Financial Products and Services in Relation to Medical Cosmetic Surgery” (关于规范医疗美容相关金融产品和金融服务的倡议) on 9 June.
The Initiative calls for prohibiting financial institutions from “engaging in any form of cooperation with illegal medical cosmetic surgery institutions, or providing related financial products and services to the clients of any illegal medical cosmetic surgery institutions.”
“In recent years China’s medical cosmetic surgery sector has seen rapid growth and the scope of the market has continually increased, satisfying the demand for cosmetic surgery amongst an increasing number of ordinary citizens,” said the Initiative.
“At the same time, a number of financial institutions have actively cooperated with third party medical cosmetic surgery institutions to provide related financial services and products such as cosmetic surgery instalment plans and cosmetic surgery loans, in order to provide greater convenience to consumers.
“However, as a new phenomenon, there has also emerged some malfeasance, such as cooperation with non-compliant or even illegal medical cosmetic surgery institutions, misleading consumers into excessive borrowing, third party cooperative bodies engaging in the coercive sale of unrelated products and services, lack of transparent information in relation to financial products and services, and excessively high pricing.”
