LUFAX.COM, a unit of Ping An Insurance (Group) Co., said none of its 7.5 million users have suffered any losses after a ratings company put it on a list of risky online lending platforms.

    Shanghai-based Lufax has 837 million yuan (US$134 million) in paid-in registered capital and is in the process of getting 3 billion yuan more from unidentified investors, it said in a statement yesterday. The new investment puts Lufax on track to be the nation’s largest peer-to-peer platform by capital.

    Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. last week put Lufax on a list of more than 350 such platforms that had significant credit risks. The agency estimated the Ping An unit’s actual paid-in capital had fallen to 80 million yuan from an earlier figure of 400 million yuan, without giving a specific time frame or identifying the shareholders.

    While Lufax didn’t specifically name Dagong in its statement, it denied other allegations that it disclosed information inadequately, ran an asset pool to pay off debts and offered cross-guarantees on products by different units.

    Senior government advisers are calling for tighter supervision of peer-to-peer online lending, which Yingcan Group estimates about quadrupled to US$17 billion last year from 2013, and is part of a shadow-banking industry that has driven total debt in China to almost three times gross domestic product.

    The websites offer investors better returns than commercial lenders, averaging 15 percent in February versus the People’s Bank of China’s benchmark deposit rate of 2.5 percent, according to Yingcan.

    Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, said March 12 the platforms shouldn’t be considered as banks or credit cooperatives because they haven’t officially applied for, or received, banking licenses.

    Deputy central bank governor Pan Gongsheng said the same day the central bank will publish rules to promote the “healthy development” of the peer-to-peer industry as soon as possible. (SD-Agencies)