File photo of a bank clerk uses a machine to count yuan banknotes in a bank in Hefei in central China's Anhui province. [Photo: china.org.cn]

A new report released by a Chinese Internet financial services firm suggests China's online peer-to-peer lending this past year has almost quadrupled compared with last year.

Lending via P2P platforms reached just over 150-billion U.S. dollars through 2015.

There are now nearly 26-hundred P2P platforms across China.

That's an increase of around a thousand compared with 2014.

It's expected this past year may have been the peak for P2P lending, as the government tightens regulations on the sector.

New regulations are set to prohibit P2P platforms from accepting public deposits, pooling investors' money to fund their own projects, or providing any kind of guarantee for lenders.