Recently the official website of Guangzhou Municipal Government has posted the Implementation Opinions of Guangzhou on Promoting Development of Internet Financial Industry (hereinafter referred to as Implementation Opinions).

 

Guangzhou has solicited opinions from relevant enterprises on the Tentative Measures of Guangzhou on Supporting Innovative Development of Internet Financial Industry in last June. Recently the Implementation Opinions was officially released.

 

The Implementation Opinions shows that Guangzhou will try to build three to five distinctive Internet financial industrial bases within three years, assemble a batch of strong and leading Internet financial enterprises, forge many Internet financial service platforms with excellent brands and build Guangzhou into an Internet financial center with an importance position in China and wide influence.

 

Before that, Guangzhou has confirmed to launch construction of Guangzhou private financial street, Tianhe CBD and Guangzhou Micro Enterprise and SME Financial Service Zone. This is a vital force driving the Internet financial industry to develop rapidly.

 

However, if comparing with the other three first-tier cities, Guangzhou is still lagged behind in terms of the number of Internet financial enterprises and the trading size. Take P2P online lending platform for example, Guangzhou has only 36 P2P platforms with transaction of RMB14.414 billion, according to information of www.wangdaizhijia.com. In contrast, the number of online lending platforms of Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen has exceeded 100. Shenzhen has nearly 300 platforms.

 

The Implementation Opinions also mentions to award legal entities which register large-scale, compliant Internet financial enterprises in Guangzhou with strong industrial influence. The award varies according to the annual profits of these enterprises, from RMB1 million to RMB10 million lump sum. Moreover, Guangzhou municipal government will also grant subsidies to Internet financial enterprises on talent introduction and business expansion.

Source: Nanfang Daily, Feb5, 2015