More importantly, as P2P lenders gain scale, they are not only changing the way credit works, they also are making mainland China a fairer place and generating jobs that would otherwise not exist. They are also helping the country as it moves away from investment-intensive, export-driven manufacturing to a new, more environmentally friendly template that is based on providing services to the domestic market.  Shanghai-based Dianrong.com was founded three years ago by Soul Htite, a former Lending Club executive, and his partner, Kevin Guo, an intellectual property lawyer. Now, the firm is about to close its latest fundraising round with money from the private equity arm of Standard Chartered and a second slug from Tiger Global, among others. It is expected to break even next year.  More from the Financial Times:  China stocks fall in defiance of Beijing's support efforts Angry Chinese premier takes charge of market fightback Q&A: China share trading suspensions  Dianrong's mission, says Mr Guo, is to replace the shark lenders. But it is doing far more than that. Many of its customers are part of the new online universe. A big segment of them are Uber drivers who need loans so they can buy or lease cars to provide taxi services.  Already, Dianrong has lent money to 400 such people, sometimes with the car as collateral or with a guarantee from the leasing company involved. The system is so flexible that a driver can repay the loan without being locked in to a fixed period and the technology so advanced that Dianrong can monitor in real time how much money the driver collects.  "Soon companies like Dianrong will influence the price of wonton noodle soup," says a senior HSBC executive based in Shanghai, with a mix of admiration and alarm. Dianrong is also leveraging its relationship with its lenders to offer them wealth management products.  Mr Guo and others like him deny they are in competition with banks. Rather, they say their clients use P2P lenders to establish credit records and then graduate to traditional loans. But bankers, such as Piyush Gupta, the head of Singapore-based DBS, are developing digital banking strategies, both in their home market and in markets where they wish to expand, such as India for DBS.  Read MoreSingapore's giant wealth fund still bullish on China  HSBC has an innovation committee studying new online models, the Shanghai executive says. Standard Chartered already holds a 10 per cent stake in Dianrong and could seek to buy more. But whether these institutions can change their lending and reliance on inflexible credit criteria is an open question.  Meanwhile, regulators are embracing internet finance companies as well. At the moment P2P lenders are at least partly the product of regulatory arbitrage, but their status will soon change. By year end, they will have to register with the Chinese regulators and be subject to rules, even if they will still have more freedom than the banks.  For the moment, at least, regulators at China's central bank and the China Banking Regulatory Commission are thankfully allowing a thousand financial flowers to bloom.
Legitimate P2P internet lenders such as Dianrong.com are slowly achieving critical mass in China, the Financial Times reports.