NEARLY 800 companies are providing online financial services in the city, with the overwhelming majority registered in the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported yesterday.

    Half of the companies serve as peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, an industry with a monthly growth rate of 10 percent. The amount of loans facilitated by these Shenzhen institutions accounts for 30 percent of the country’s total, and about half of the province’s, said Liu Daping, an official with the city’s financial industry development and service office, at a business forum Saturday.

    P2P lending refers to direct lending to unrelated individuals without the involvement of any financial institution as an intermediary. P2P lending takes place online through specialized websites.

    “The Qianhai area is home to 699 Internet financial service companies, including nine crowd-founding companies, 41 online payment companies and 51 data mining companies,” said Tian Min, deputy head of the Qianhai administration.

    Due to the absence of regulations, many fraud cases connected with this emerging mode of financing have emerged recently and the country’s financial supervision authority is formulating policies to reign in these issues, Liu said.

    In addition, he pointed out that P2P companies are supposed to act only as brokers and cannot develop a capital pool of their own.

    “Qianhai will integrate resources and build infrastructure platforms to support Internet financial service companies in terms of payments and settlements, credit evaluations and data exchanges,” said Tian.

    (Luo Songsong)