Chinese borrowers drown in online lending’s ‘bottomless pit’

A file photo of petitioners being escorted out of a park by police and security personnel before being loaded on buses and driven away in Beijing, as Chinese authorities aggressively quashed a planned protest against losses sustained by peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms. — AFP

SHANGHAI: Telecoms engineer Peng Jiezhao's taste for new smartphones and expensive sneakers seemed like a harmless, if expensive, hobby – until he started borrowing money from Chinese online lending sites to feed it.

An initial 300 yuan (RM178) loan began a downward spiral that dragged Peng, 22, into a 100,000 yuan (RM59,339) debt borrowed from more than 20 "peer-to-peer" (P2P) lending platforms.