MNI BRIEF: China Regulators Warn Investors On Investment Risks

China's regulators have warned investors of potential risks as Beijing moves ahead with delisting companies from domestic equity markets and online wealth management products grow in numbers, officials at financial regulators told reporters Friday.

The People’s Bank of China is co-working with other regulators to strengthen education of individual investors in a bid to prevent financial risks and spot illegal investment practices early, PBOC official Yu Wenjian said, noting that any product with a projected rate of return over 6% is highly risky.

As China pushes a registration-based IPO system in which companies are allowed to delist according to regulation, investors must be trained for the long-term, with investment decisions made based on knowledge of listed companies, said Lin Lixia, an official at the China Securities Regulatory Commission, pointing out around 90% of the over 200 million individual investors in China financial markets are small investors who hold shares valued at less than CNY500,000 in market value. Just shy of 90% of China's 'netizens', around 904 million of its web-enabled population, currently use online payment at present, according to the officials.