It’s pretty rare for the PBoC to admit that it has paid a “huge” price for a regulatory failure. I wonder just how huge it was.

via chinabankingnews:

The Chi­nese cen­tral bank says it will main­tain strict reg­u­la­tion of the fin­tech sec­tor due to con­cerns over risk in re­la­tion to in­ter­net fi­nance.

Pan Gong­sheng (潘功胜), deputy gov­er­nor of the Peo­ple’s Bank of China (PBOC), said that prob­lems with on­line fi­nan­cial risk in China had pro­vided a “deep les­son” for reg­u­la­tors.

“We have paid a huge price, from the ac­cu­mu­la­tion, ex­pan­sion and ex­plo­sion of in­ter­net fi­nan­cial risk, to sub­se­quent clean-up and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion which con­tin­ues un­til now,” said Pan in a speech de­liv­ered on 17 De­cem­ber at the 3rd Chi­nese In­ter­net Fi­nance Fo­rum (第三届中国互联网金融论坛) con­vened in Bei­jing.

Chi­nese reg­u­la­tors cracked down on the prob­lem-fraught P2P lend­ing sec­tor in 2019, lead­ing to a plunge in the num­ber of reg­u­larly op­er­at­ing plat­forms from over 7,000 at their peak to un­der 600 by Oc­to­ber this year.