Chinese authorities may grant online peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders access to the country's enterprise credit rating system, Liu Shiyu, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), stated late Monday at a P2P seminar.

This rating system, which has long been accessible only by the country's top financial institutions, will help P2P lenders minimize their exposure to loan defaults as the scale of their operations continues to widen, Liu said.

To date, P2P lending sites - which pool money from online users to finance loans elsewhere - have remained outside the purview of China's financial authorities, which means that Liu's remarks could mark a significant step toward regulating this emerging market, Li Zhen, a research fellow from the PBC's branch in Yunnan Province, told the Global Times. 

After first appearing on the Chinese Internet in 2007, P2P lenders have witnessed explosive growth thanks to the unmet demand for funding from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), most of which have long struggled unsuccessfully to secure credit from the country's largest banks, Li said.

China's P2P loans totaled 20 billion yuan ($3.26 billion) in 2012, up from 1 billion yuan the previous year, according to a recent report from Essence Securities. This report also predicted that this figure could shoot to as high as 60 billion yuan this year.

But inability to access personal credit records means that P2P lenders are becoming increasingly vulnerable as they continue to do business with enterprises that don't qualify for traditional banking services, Li added.

As early as September 2011, the China Banking Regulatory Commission sounded the alarm that domestic P2P lenders had already waded into potentially dangerous waters with their lending operations.

So far though, the commission has yet to intervene on the matter.

Signs of macro-economic weakness have also been seen putting pressure on smaller online credit providers. Huang Zhen, director of financial law institute with Central University of Finance and Economics, said at a separate P2P forum over the weekend that China's slowing economy had already bankrupted several such lenders this year, and more are bound to follow.

After just 28 days in operation, zhongdaiw.com, a Hainan Province-based P2P loan site, claimed to have gone bust on April 2 due primarily to borrower defaults, local media reported.