China approves personal credit platform for online lending

BEIJING - China's central bank on Thursday gave the green light to a credit-scoring platform for individual online lending activity.

The company, under the name Baihang Credit Scoring, was granted a three-year license, with Zhu Huanqi, chairman of Huida Asset Management Co. Ltd., as the legal representative, according to a statement published on the website of the People's Bank of China.

Supplementary to the state-run personal credit database, Baihang is China's first unified, private platform to provide personal credit information services.

With registered capital of 1 billion yuan (around $150 million), Baihang was jointly founded by eight credit firms including Tencent Credit and Alibaba-backed Zhima Credit, as well as the National Internet Finance Association of China, which is the largest shareholder with a 36-percent stake.

Analysts believe the platform will help address the lack of records on personal online creditworthiness and improve the country's credit-scoring system.