It's been mostly downhill from there as China's financial regulator has gradually tightened the screws on a formerly freewheeling private financial sector with very little experience at what it was doing, including risk management. The big majority of China's fintechs folded during the cleanup. But most of the ones still in business have returned to a growth track, often in the role of loan facilitators rather than actual lenders. That return to growth shows up in their share performance, with nearly all those stocks outperforming Qudian's.