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Majority of unlicensed P2P lenders are from China: OJK
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Chairman of the Financial Services Authority's (OJK) investment alert task force, Tongam L. Tobing (right), and OJK spokesperson Hari Tangguh Wibowo speak during the authority's reveal of 277 fraudulent peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders in Indonesia at OJK's office in Jakarta on Friday. (JP/Rachmadea Aisyah)
T
he Financial Services Authority (OJK) has discovered that more than 100 unlicensed peer-to-peer lending (P2P) providers in the country had been developed by Chinese firms.
The OJK reported its findings on Friday, pointing out that out of 227 unlicensed P2P lenders it had listed, at least half originated from China.
The chairman of the OJK’s investment alert task force, Tongam L. Tobing, said the firms had likely fled the Chinese government’s tightening measures on curbing illegal financial technology (fintech) firms and later found a consumer base in Indonesia.
“We have attempted to summon all 227 [unlicensed P2P lenders] to our office so that we could push them into registering themselves with the OJK, but many of them turned out to have no [mailing] address,” he told reporters at a press briefing on Friday.
As The Jakarta Post observed from the list, a single firm could have developed multiple illegal lending platforms. For example, a developer named Xinhe had uploaded at least nine P2P lending apps to the web and Google PlayStore platform.
Other developers with Chinese names such as LiChen, Tupulian, Xiehualei had also established lending apps using Indonesian names such as Dompet Pinjaman (loan wallet), DompetKamu (your wallet) and Duit Instan (instant cash]).
The OJK attempted to summon the unlicensed P2P lenders between Feb. 19 and July 25.
“If they continue to ignore us, we have set up a partnership with the Communications and Information Ministry and Google to block them as well as hand their data to the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department [Bareskrim] for further investigation,” said Tongam. (dmr)
