【英语财经】中国企业利用P2P平台拍卖坏账 Chinese companies turn to internet and P2P lending to auction bad debts

Struggling companies in China are turning to the under-regulated internet finance industry to ease their cash flow problems as suppliers and creditors fail to pay their bills.

Peer-to-peer exchange platforms have grown rapidly by matching unpaid bills with debt collection agencies at a big discount for the vendors.

The growth of these new forms of lending comes as debts are mounting in China’s traditional banking system — overall debt is 230 per cent of gross domestic product.

“With such large volumes of bad debt and lack of liquidity, corporations could find that using the internet or this type of P2P platform might speed up the final recovery of those long outstanding or non-collectible debts at a lower cost and in a more efficient way,” said Wilson Pang, a partner at KPMG.

P2P platforms first emerged in the UK in 2005 as a way of directly connecting borrowers with lenders online — resulting in better rates than those offered by banks. In China, the large, unfulfilled credit needs of small businesses and consumers create a “natural fertile ground” for P2P to flourish, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley.

They said there was “significant potential for P2P lending” in China, but pointed out that the market was fragmented with 1,500 providers. Out of the more than 900 platforms established in 2014, 367 had failed by the end of that year, the analysts said.

Privately owned P2P platform Baozhi360 has over Rmb99bn ($15bn) in bad loans and rival Zichan360 has taken over more than 59,000 distressed loans worth nearly Rmb1.5bn since August, according to its website.

Many of the loans listed on these platforms include unpaid debts for goods or services. The P2P platforms offer a source of liquidity to companies unable to borrow from traditional banks.

But there are questions over how the platforms should be regulated, Mr Pang said. So-called “bad banks” are regulated by the finance ministry, while P2P lending falls under the commerce ministry, putting regulation of the collection agencies and the tactics they use to recover loans in a grey area, he added.

P2P platforms for exchanging bad debts are the latest innovation in dealing with the flood of distressed loans in China. Last year one of China’s big four “bad banks” sold debt portfolios over Taobao, China’s version of eBay.

Additional reporting by Emma Dunkley

中国一些身陷困境的企业正求助于监管宽松的互联网金融业缓解现金流问题，因为供应商和债权人无法为它们买单。

P2P交易平台近来发展快速，它们在卖方提供较大折扣的前提下，撮合未偿付账单与收债机构。

这些新形式的放贷增长之际，中国传统银行体系的债务越来越多——总债务已达到国内生产总值(GDP)的230%。

“鉴于坏账这么多，流动性这么不足，企业可能发现，使用互联网或这类P2P平台也许能够以成本更低、效率更高的方式，加快那些长期未偿还债务或拖欠债务的最终收回，”毕马威(KPMG)合伙人Wilson Pang表示。

P2P平台最初在2005年出现于英国，它们在网上牵线搭桥，撮合借款人和贷款人，为双方都带来比银行更优惠的利率。在中国，中小企业和消费者未被满足的庞大信贷需求，为P2P的蓬勃发展提供了摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)分析师所称的“天然沃土”。

这些分析师表示，在中国，“P2P放贷大有潜力”，但指出，目前该市场处于分散状态，活跃着1500家提供商。他们介绍说，在2014年建立的900多个平台中，367个未能撑到该年年底。

私有P2P平台“包之网”(Baozhi360)有超过990亿元人民币（合150亿美元）不良贷款，而“资产360”(Zichan360)在其网站上称，自去年8月以来接收逾5.9万笔不良贷款，价值近15亿元人民币。

这些平台上挂出的不少贷款包括商品或服务的未偿付债务。这些P2P平台为那些无法从传统银行借款的企业提供了一个流动性来源。

但毕马威合伙人Wilson Pang表示，对于这些平台应该如何受到监管，还有不少问号。他补充说，所谓的“坏账银行”由中国财政部监管，而P2P放贷处在中国商务部的监管职责范围，这使收债机构及其收回贷款所用手法处于灰色地带。

面向坏账交易的P2P平台是应对中国不良贷款洪流的最新创新。去年，中国四大“坏账银行”之一在淘宝(Taobao)——中国版的eBay——上出售了一些债务组合。

爱玛·邓克利(Emma Dunkley)补充报道

译者/和风

【秒懂】什么样的网上理财平台要小心？