[Editor’s note: This is a guest post and white paper from Lufax. Lufax is a gold sponsor and will be in attendance at LendIt USA 2015 on April 13-15. In this post and linked white paper, they give a closer look at China’s p2p lending market.]
China has emerged as one of the world’s largest P2P lending markets. What’s driving this growth? First, the rapid growth of the P2P lending system in China is a manifestation of deficiencies in the existing financial system. P2P platforms help individuals and small businesses in China solve funding issues to improve quality of life and drive business development. There are a huge amount of borrowers seeking funds and investors looking for better returns in China. According to transaction data samples collected by a third-party from 90 P2P platforms in 2013, an aggregate total of 149,300 borrowers completed P2P transactions that year, an eight-fold increase from 2012. The rapid increase continued into 2014 with the total number of P2P borrowers among this sample hitting 630,000. The majority of P2P borrowers in China are aged 20-49, with many in this segment being young entrepreneurs, as well as business owners seeking working capital funding.
Another force behind this rapid growth is the ability for companies like Lufax to institute risk control and credit review systems that greatly enhance the security of investments on our platform. By using big data analytics and offline borrower information verification, Lufax greatly enhances capital safety for the 7 million users on our platforms. It’s also interesting to note that a broader push for implementing a national credit reporting systems in China is underway, with the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) in January this year distributing a notice calling for eight private companies, to make effective preparations for the introduction of personal credit businesses.
What we’ve outlined above are tidbits of the fascinating growth story in China’s P2P lending industry. To take a closer look, Lufax recently teamed up with Boao Review to commission a white paper that looks at the historical development, current market dynamics, and challenges and prospects as the industry heads into its next stage of growth. We invite you to read and share this report.
Download the white paper: P2P Lending Market in China
