China considering huge boost to Internet finance

Research team studying new legislation.

A research team on Internet finance development and supervision is in Shanghai to do surveys on legislation about Internet finance. It consists of personnel from seven administrative departments involved in finance.

These departments include the People’s Bank of China, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Securities and the Legislative Affairs office of the State Council.

This is the first time multiple administrative departments are investigating and doing research on the emerging Internet finance industry. This is also the largest governmental investigation and research on the industry's development.

A government said this was a positive signal for the industry because supervisors are changing their attitudes towards Internet finance from wait-and-see to paying attention and getting involved.

PBOC, the central bank, said Internet finance combines traditional finance and the Internet and has the advantages in high transparency, low intermediate cost, convenient payment, rich credit data and high information processing efficiency.