Students fail to learn debt-control lessons

Speakers: Nillah Nyakoa and Lu Sirui

[Photo: Bing.com]

In the past three years, the media has highlighted many stories about college students who have fallen into debt as a result of using peer-to-peer lending platforms.

These platforms, many of which are unauthorized and unregulated, are usually based on the internet and have no connection with the established banking system.

In some cases, lives have been damaged and some students have been pushed to commit criminal acts as they seek to repay their debts.

Earlier this year, the Inner Mongolia Morning Post reported that about 900 university students in the autonomous region were cheated out of more than 9 million yuan, after they signed up for a "promotion" that purported to offer iPhones for 800 yuan, rather than the usual price of about 2,000 yuan.

In fact, they had unwittingly applied for loans from a peer-to-peer platform and were quickly pressured to repay the money at high rates of interest.

Now, experts are calling for the sector to be more strictly regulated to prevent abuse.

Feng Lirong, a prosecutor at the Dongcheng district people's procuratorate in Beijing, said "Peer-to-peer lending has become a hot topic among college students, but it has turned out to be a social issue, not just a simple financial problem," 

The audio clip is from Studio+, produced by CRI.