Too Much Technology and Too Little Regulation? The Spectacular Demise of P2P Lending in China
Too Much Technology and Too Little Regulation? The Spectacular Demise of P2P Lending in China
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DOI：
10.1515/ael-2021-0056
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发表时间：
2021-11
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Ding Chen;S. Deakin;Andrew Johnston;Boya Wang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ding Chen;S. Deakin;Andrew Johnston;Boya Wang
摘要在本文中，我们追踪了中国在线P2P借贷的快速增长和壮观的消亡。根据2017年和2018年在中国进行的一系列采访，我们跟踪了该行业的扩张，从2007年建立第一个主要平台，到2015年引入有限监管以应对一系列平台失败，再到2019-20年监管机构最终事实上关闭整个行业。然而，与技术将降低风险的说法相反，新平台似乎通过连接分散的借款人和贷款人而引发了新的风险，而监管机构决定让该行业在没有具体监管的情况下发展。虽然人们希望P2P贷款可能会增加被排除在正规银行体系之外的中小企业的资金流动，但最终，P2P平台上的太多活动都具有我们所说的“交易模糊性”和“法律的流动性”：它发生在合法性的边缘，通常相当于庞氏骗局、欺诈或未经许可的银行活动。银行业的中介作用确保银行在借款人违约时成为协调中心，而传统的放债则由放债人承担违约风险，与此相反，P2P部门的违约和平台故障将损失分散到全国各地，往往是那些没有能力承担损失的放债人。虽然中央政府没有正式支持P2P行业（因为银行业务的系统性影响，中央政府对银行也是如此），但当P2P贷款将损失转移到分散在全国各地的贷款人时，政府不得不参与其中。最终，中央政府宣布全面逆转政策，导致该行业实际上被关闭。这一事件提醒人们不要过于乐观地声称技术可以消除欺诈风险和贷款固有的根本不确定性，并提醒我们，如果没有适当的监管和充分的内部控制，金融机构将永远以导致不稳定的方式运作。
Abstract In this paper we trace the rapid growth and spectacular demise of online peer to peer lending in China. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted in China in 2017 and 2018, we follow the expansion of the sector from the establishment of the first major platform in 2007, through the introduction of limited regulation in 2015 in response to a series of platform failures to the final de facto closure of the whole sector by the regulator in 2019–20. However, contrary to claims that technology would reduce risk, the new platforms appear to have given rise to new risks by connecting dispersed borrowers and lenders whilst the regulator had decided to leave the sector to evolve without specific regulation. While there were hopes that P2P lending might increase flows of finance to the SMEs that are excluded from the formal banking system, ultimately too much of the activity on the P2P platforms was characterised by what we term ‘transactional ambiguity’ and ‘legal fluidity’: it occurred on the fringes of legality, often amounting to Ponzi schemes, fraud or unlicensed banking activity. In contrast to the banking sector, where their intermediation role ensures that banks are the focal point in the event of borrower default, and conventional moneylending, where moneylenders bear the risk of default, defaults and platform failures in the P2P sector distributed losses far and wide around the country, often to lenders who were not capable of bearing them. Whilst the central government did not formally stand behind the P2P sector (as it does with banks because of the systemic implications of their operations), the government could not help but become involved where P2P lending transmitted losses to lenders who were dispersed around the whole country. Ultimately, central government announced a wholesale reversal of policy that led to the sector effectively being closed down. The episode cautions against overly optimistic claims that technology can eradicate the risks of fraud and fundamental uncertainty inherent in lending, and reminds us that, without appropriate regulation and adequate internal controls, financial institutions will always operate in ways that result in instability.