China's underground banks spread pain as defaults rise

BEIJING (AP) — Fan Xiaolin, an engineer in Changsha in central China, thought he was safe when he deposited his family's savings of 800,000 yuan ($130,000) in a private finance company he said was recommended by employees of state-owned Bank of China.

Chinese banks get serious about risk of bad debts swell

(Reuters) - Chinese banks are scrambling to get on top of bad debts they have downplayed for years, cutting off riskier borrowers, further tightening lending terms and, in one case, deploying teams of investigators to assess the risk of loan defaults.