Chinese P2P lender Exubo has $170m frozen by authorities
In what is being seen as a sign of a more vigilant approach by Chinese authorities regarding ever-growing peer-to-peer lending platforms, Ezubo (Ezubao) saw 1.1bn yuan ($170m) frozen by the government last week, and Chairman, Din Ning, along with other top executives, was said to be in police custody according to multiple reports. The locked funds were held at China CITIC Bank, which complied with a police order delivered on 8 December. Police confiscated computers and sealed off an Ezubo office in Bejing, and earlier this month over 40 Ezubo employees were taken for questioning by police, but were released afterwards. Ezubo was launched last year and in a short time its transaction volume reached over 73bn yuan ($11bn) from over five million registered users. According to a report in Caixin, individuals close to the company, including an employee, stated that the P2P lender had a “murky history”.

Ezubo is one of the bigger peer-to-peer lenders, with an investor base of 840,000 involving 71 billion yuan of funds sourced online from across the country. Photo: Reuters