Customer education needed to fight financial crime

Low financial capability has left some Chinese customers vulnerable to financial crime, while leaving others less able to access financial services, according to experts, who said the key to boosting financial inclusion lies in customer education.

Since the beginning of the year, many peer-to-peer lending platforms have collapsed and about 50 of these companies' bosses have fled, undermining the safety of many clients' investments, according to data from information provider WDZJ.com.

Zeng Gang, director of banking research at the Institute of Finance and Banking of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in cases where P2P platforms ran illegal businesses, clients trusted the platforms because of a lack of financial knowledge. He also blamed such irrational behavior on an excessive desire to earn money and ignorance of the risks involved.