China’s Online Financial Sector Comes of Age
Online peer-to-peer lending may hold the key to expanding and deepening China’s financial sector, enabling firms to grow, and bolstering domestic consumption. But the very factors fueling P2P platforms' rapid growth – their reliance on credit-ratings databases and eschewal of collateral or guarantees – can generate serious risks.
BEIJING – Last month, China’s leaders revealed details of the 13th Five-Year Plan, which will guide the economy’s trajectory until 2020. Gone are the directives to expand industrial production at a breakneck pace that characterized previous five-year plans. Now, the focus is on achieving sustainable long-term growth, underpinned by domestic consumption, a stronger services sector, entrepreneurship, and innovation.