P2P lending firm gets $65m in financing

Despite increasingly tight investment among peer-to-peer lending firms, a Beijing-based start-up announced on Thursday it has received series A financing as high as $65 million, one of the largest in China in the past year.

According to Meili Jinrong, an online P2P platform with a focus on consumer finance, the round of financing is led by Bertelsmann Asia Investments. The other five investors include Morningside Ventures and GX Capital.

A lot of P2P firms in China have gone bankrupt over the past year leaving investors with zero returns. But Meili Jinrong said to control the risk it targets a niche market, lending money to young people who cannot afford to buy consumer electronics and second-hand cars.

Liu Yannan, chief executive officer of Meili Jinrong, said his start-up is offering online wealth-management products with high yields to those who have idle money and lend it to young Chinese who do not have credit cards.

"This is a huge market with great growth potential," he said, adding about 400 million people in China aged between 18 and 35 can benefit from consumer financing as the lack of credit records makes it difficult for them to borrow from traditional banks.

Since the founding of the company at the beginning of this year, Meili Jinrong has offered loans to 17,000 second-hand car buyers. It has set a goal to offer loans for 80,000 second-hand cars in 2016.