Regulate online finance

THE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH OF INTERNET finance in China must have caught everyone by surprise and leaves policymakers no choice but to come up with upgraded regulation as soon as possible.

However, to promote the healthy development of online financial services, as Premier Li Keqiang urged on Tuesday, the regulators must proceed fairly and cautiously, so as not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

The recent surge in China's online money-market funds was led by Yu'ebao, an investment product launched by e-commerce giant Alibaba last June, which has so far attracted more than 500 billion yuan ($81 billion) from tens of millions of small-pocket Internet users.