Nude Photos Used as Collateral for Loans, Leak

Perhaps the only thing worse than sending a nude photo of yourself to a lender as collateral is learning that the photo had been leaked on to the internet. In China, some online lenders hold on to nude photos of their borrowers (typically women) to use as leverage to pay up. If they don’t, the photos may be distributed to the borrower’s friends and family members to shame them. While this practice is certainly not common, about 10 gigabytes worth of such photos from loan platform Jiedaibao were leaked on to the internet recently, according to People’s Daily

Jiedaibao says that loans with such terms are private peer-to-peer loans that they can’t regulate. “We have called the police and collected evidence to protect the company’s reputation. Those who leaked the nude pictures will be punished according to law,” they said in a public response.

Chinese regulators have been working hard to address the growth of p2p lending after investors have lost billions through fraud. P2P lender Ezubao for example, turned out to be a $7.6 billion ponzi scheme. Meanwhile, Moodys reported that by the end of last year, a whopping 800 p2p loan platforms in China had already failed or were facing liquidity issues. In response, banking regulators want all p2p lenders to register with the government.