Students must be protected from loan sharks

At the two sessions, National People's Congress deputies and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee members have been discussing how to tackle the companies issuing illegal loans that target college students. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Some loan companies target college students on campus and they use quite bad measures in their "businesses". For example, some companies set so high interest rates for the loans to students that the students may have to pay 10 times the money they borrowed. Some loan-issuers obtain naked photos of female students as a "loan guarantee", and threaten to spread the photos online if the latter fail to pay the money and high interests back in time.

These practices are illegal and they often do great psychological harm to the victims. In some extreme cases, the victims have even committed suicide. The authorities have already taken action against these companies and the majority have been closed down. The police, the education authorities and the financial departments should continue their efforts to protect students from loan sharks.

The government needs to regulate the financial market and encourage financial institutions to raise the financial awareness of students and provide more legal financial services to college students. Banks should develop financial products that meet college students' needs.

Universities and colleges should also give students financial education, so that students know what they are doing when trying to apply for a loan. More importantly, they should also be taught how to better protect themselves from loan sharks. Had some of the victim students called the police earlier, they would not have suffered from the threats of the illegal money lenders.