Legal basis: Provisions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Private Lending Cases.
Article 1 The term "private lending" as mentioned in these Provisions refers to the financing behavior between natural persons, legal persons and unincorporated organizations. These provisions shall not apply to financial institutions and their branches engaged in loan business established with the approval of the financial supervision department, as well as disputes arising from loans and other related financial businesses.
Article 2 When a lender brings a private lending lawsuit to a people's court, it shall provide creditor's rights certificates such as IOUs, receipts, IOUs and other evidence that can prove the existence of a legal relationship between lending and borrowing. If the creditor's rights certificate such as IOUs, receipts and IOUs held by the parties does not specify the creditor, and the party holding the creditor's rights certificate brings a private lending lawsuit, the people's court shall accept it. The defendant raised a factual defense against the plaintiff's creditor qualification, and the people's court ruled that the plaintiff did not have the creditor qualification after examination and dismissed the prosecution.
Article 24 If the borrower and the lender have not agreed on interest, and the lender claims to pay interest, the people's court will not support it. If the interest agreement between natural persons is unclear and the lender claims to pay interest, the people's court will not support it. Except for the loan between natural persons, if the agreement on the loan interest between the borrower and the lender is unclear, and the lender claims interest, the people's court shall determine the interest according to the contents of the private loan contract, the local or the parties' trading methods, trading habits, market quotation and other factors.
Article 25 If the lender requests the borrower to pay interest at the interest rate agreed in the contract, the people's court shall support it, except that the interest rate agreed by both parties exceeds four times the market quotation of one-year loan at the time of the establishment of the contract. The "one-year loan market quotation" mentioned in the preceding paragraph refers to the one-year loan market quotation issued monthly by the National Interbank Funding Center authorized by the People's Bank of China from August 20th, 20th, 20th19th.