Shadow Banking Now under Control, Internet Platforms Fully Regulated: Chinese Central Bank

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A senior official from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has hailed the success of efforts to contain shadow banking in the Chinese economy, as well as ensure that the financial activities of the big Internet platforms are fully regulated.

“Following concentrated attacks, the risk points that the Chinese financial system had accumulated over the long-term have been effectively disposed of,” said Chen Yulu (陈雨露) PBOC deputy-governor, at a press conference held on 12 May.

“Financial risk has contracted in general, and is controllable overall.

“Shadow banking malfeasance has been effectively rectified, nearly 5,000 P2P online lending organisations have fully suspended operations, and the specialist rectification of Internet finance work has successfully reached its conclusion.

“[We] have established cases against and investigated over 25,000 incidents of illegal fund-raising, and fully included the enterprise finance operations of Internet platforms within the purview of regulation.”

Chen said that the future focus of Chinese financial regulation and policy will be stability and financial inclusion.

“The central bank will expand the vigour of the implementation of stable monetary policy, vigorously support the macro-economy and maintain stability,” said Chen.

“In the next phase, the central bank will also make stable long-term growth the outstanding priority, strengthen cross-cyclical policy adjustments, accelerate the implementation of policies and measures that have already been released – and in particular actively plan for the use of quantitative increase policy tools.”

Chen also pointed to the need to continue to stabilise total credit volumes, reduce the cost of financing, strengthen financial support for key areas and weak linkages, and further expand support for the real economy.