ONE of the supposed virtues of peer-to-peer lenders—websites that connect borrowers to people with money to lend—is transparency. They often publish a range of information about those seeking loans (credit history, employment status, income), so that the investors stumping up the money know what they are getting into. So it is fitting that Imperial Investment, a Chinese P2P firm, is impressively transparent about its own circumstances. Earlier this month it published four separate notices from police, employees and family pleading for its runaway founder to return. “Our faces are bathed in tears,” the employees wrote.
Chinese media were far more phlegmatic about the woes of Imperial Investment, which has facilitated 935m yuan ($142m) in loans since its launch in 2013. “Runaway P2P bosses are no longer newsworthy,” declared the Jinling Evening News. At the end of 2015, nearly a third of all Chinese P2P lenders (1,263 out of 3,858) had run into difficulties, according to Online Lending House, an industry website. It classifies them according to the nature of their troubles: halted operations, disputes, frozen withdrawals or, as in the case of Imperial, bosses who have absconded. Running away may sound rather extreme but it turns out to be popular: 266 P2P bosses have fled over the past six months, by Online Lending House’s count....Continue reading
Source: Business and finance http://ift.tt/1Vb4rCP
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