Well-known Chinese news site Sohu recently reported that the Chinese State Council organized a conference, which ncluded 14 cabinet-level ministries and commissions, to kick off a one-year long “clean-up” operation to deal with the chaotic Internet based finance market. The Chinese online Peer-to-Peer (P2P) finance market has recently been booming. Small but high volume personal loans and transactions have been spreading widely across the Chinese Internet like wild fire. However, in the past five years, 1,523 out of 3,984 online financial service platforms went bankrupt or simply disappeared. This resulted in significant risks in the financial market as well as increased tension in society. In recent months, several multi-billion-dollar level online P2P platforms have been investigated and ceased operation. Those investigated covered the markets of online investment management, loans, payments, consumer financing, mutual fund sales, trust management, and online advertising.
Source: Sohu, April 17, 2016
http://news.sohu.com/20160417/n444534662.shtml