Regulations for the oversight of the country's burgeoning online finance sector will soon be launched, industry watchers said on Wednesday.

Official guidance documents are in the pipeline for the effective regulation of online finance, although the institution of a law specifically tailored for Internet-based finance remains some way off, Jia Kang, head of the Zhongguancun Internet Finance Institute and a political advisor, told the Global Times on the sidelines of a forum held in Beijing, where some deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC) and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference were invited to discuss Internet finance.

Jia said that "the continuing growth in the online finance sector is expected to support and boost mass entrepreneurship and innovation from the grass-roots level," but without appropriate oversight, possible systemic risks might be on the cards.

Stating that Internet-based finance has risen to prominence, Premier Li Keqiang also mentioned in his government work report delivered on March 5 that the sound development of online finance should be fostered as part of broad-based efforts to rebalance the economy.

There has been much speculation over the past year that the People's Bank of China (PBC), the country's central bank, would head up the task of unveiling regulatory guidelines for the sound development of Internet finance. But up till now, the guidelines have yet to come into existence.

A set of guidelines will be devised to regulate the development of online finance, Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of China's central bank and a political advisor, told reporters on March 4, without giving an exact time frame.

The PBC is set to issue the long-awaited guidelines in April, Zeng Guang, secretary-general of the Shenzhen Internet Finance Association, told the Global Times Wednesday.

Despite the forthcoming regulations, industry participants remain bullish on online finance.

Small and micro-sized enterprises have found it hard to obtain bank credit, rendering providers of online financial services a must for smaller businesses, Zhuge Peng, ­deputy general manager of Shenzhen-based peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform touna.cn, told the same forum on Wednesday.

Beijing-based software company Yonyou Network Technology Co, which branched out to the Internet finance business with its investment in a P2P platform in 2014, will continue exploring opportunities in the online finance arena this year, Wang Wenjing, chairman and CEO of Yonyou who is also an NPC deputy, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Revenues from investment in online finance-related segments are set to rise in the years to come, although software will still be the company's core business, Wang said.

In the past, the Internet was often treated by financial institutions as a conduit to market their products, but now the Internet can play a part in innovating financial products, Robin Li Yanhong, chairman of Baidu Inc and a political advisor, told reporters on Wednesday.