Female students in China use nude selfies to borrow money online

Some loan sharks sell nude photos even after female students have paid back their loans

Ensuring loan repayment is undoubtedly a difficult task and various measures have been taken to guarantee return of money, however, Chinese loan sharks have gone a step further.

Female university students in China are being asked to send nude photos as collateral to borrow money online.

The students are asked to send nude photos of themselves, holding their ID cards, to online lenders to borrow thousands of yuan. The moneylenders threaten to contact their parents and make photos public if the students fail to pay back loans, Southern Metropolis Daily reported this week.

These loans typically range from 500 yuan to 5,000 yuan, and carry a 30% weekly interest rate, even though interest rates for personal loans are capped at 24% annually in China.



One student who was identified as Li Li, said she had first borrowed just 500 yuan ($76), at a weekly interest rate of 30%, from a lender on Jiedaibao, an online peer-to-peer lending platform owned by Beijing-based private equity fund JD Capital. However, after paying old loans by taking out new ones, Li now owes 55,000 yuan and the lender is threatening to post her naked photos online.

Even more shockingly, some loan sharks sell nude photos of female student borrowers for 30 yuan on online chat groups, even after they have paid back their loans, state newspaper Legal Daily reported.

On Wednesday, Jiedaibao posted a statement on Weibo confirming that nude selfie loans exist, but said the interest rates were agreed between the two parties via other channels. According to numerous Chinese media reports, QQ and Wechat, two popular messaging apps owned by Tencent, are common places to broker “nude loans”.



Threatening messages from loan sharks, attached to nude photos of female borrowers, are spreading on Chinese social media platforms. In one screenshot that has been widely picked up by Chinese media, a lender threatens to send a nude selfie to a student’s parents if she doesn't pay back in a week. The loan shark claims she borrowed 10,000 yuan, at an annual interest rate of 24%, for an abortion after an accidental pregnancy.

Due to limited government support, Chinese students find it difficult to get loans for tuition or starting a business.

This article originally appeared Quartz.

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