China’s New Lenders Collect Invasive Data and Offer Billions. Beijing Is Worried.<br />“But they don’t really know how to change that because the data is already being used.”<br />Mr. Bai of the China Association of Microfinance added<br />that “some cash loan companies use all kinds of soft violence to press customers to pay their loans back.”<br />Last month, Guangdong Province in southern China warned<br />that more than a dozen apps had security loopholes that allowed companies to steal user information.<br />Smart Finance uses repayment behavior data to help strengthen its credit rating system, “but<br />there is still a long way to go,” said Carrie Fang, a spokeswoman for Smart Finance<br />In November, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, stopped companies and people from starting new online cash lending platforms.<br />Last month, an internet financial association affiliated with the People’s Bank of China<br />announced plans to start a system that would crunch data from China’s big tech firms.<br />In a country that lacks reliable ways to tell who might be a good borrower, these lenders use artificial intelligence<br />and oddly personal data — like tracking how fast prospective borrowers type on their phones — to determine who will pay them back.
