Nude selfies used as collateral for Chinese loans

BEIJING: Hundreds of photos and videos of naked women used as collateral for loans on a Chinese online lending service have leaked onto the web, highlighting regulatory problems in the fast-growing peer-topeer marketplace.

A 10-gigabyte file posted on the Internet exposed the personal details of more than 160 young women, who were asked to provide the explicit material to secure money through online lending platform Jiedaibao.

Launched by JD Capital last year, Jiedaibao allows lenders to operate anonymously, but requires borrowers to reveal their real names when making transactions.

Loan amounts and interest rates can be customised to meet the needs of users — often people who have a hard time accessing loans through traditional institutions, like banks.

Interest on the “nude loans” reached an astonishing 30 per cent a week, according to the Global Times newspaper.

Lenders told female borrowers that if they failed to repay the loans, their nude photos would be sent to their families and friends, whose information was also required for some transactions, the article said.

Material in the file put on the web last Wednesday showed some borrowers also promised to repay loans with sexual favours, according to screen captures posted on social media websites.

In a statement on its official Twitter-like Weibo account, Jiedaibao said it had tracked down the accounts of several borrowers through photos and ID information circulated online, and had frozen the suspected lenders’ accounts.

“The ‘nude loans’ deals were mainly initiated and completed offline, and Jiedaibao only played the role of a money transfer platform in the deals,” the statement said. AFP