Regulating China's Shadow Banking System Isn't Easy

On a morning in March, row after row of chairs in the waiting room of Wenzhou Private Lending Registration Service Center sit empty. Zhou Xiang, a manager at one of the five government-sanctioned loan brokers operating in the center, which opened in 2012, hasn’t had a single customer today. “The volume of lending is so low we ourselves won’t be here long without expanding into some other businesses,” he says.

The dearth of clients helps explain the failure of China’s year-old effort to regulate informal lending. Former Premier Wen Jiabao chose to locate the center in Wenzhou, a city of 9 million in southeastern China, after more than 80 businessmen in the area committed suicide or declared bankruptcy because they were unable to make payments on black-market loans. Brokers like Zhou match cash-strapped businesses with private lenders, draft loan contracts, and monitor monthly payments.