China launched a platform for centralized commercial paper trading on Dec 8 to promote and better regulate a 15 trillion dollar market.

“China’s Commercial Paper market has been growing rapidly, and is playing a positive role in corporate financing and forming a multi-layer financial system, it will boost transparency and efficiency of the market and help ward off risks. It will also improve the mechanism of macro-management, and improve the channel for monetary policy transmission.” said Pan Gongsheng, department governor of People’s Bank of China.

Commercial paper trading is being increasingly tapped by small businesses in China to meet short-term financing needs.

The Shanghai Commercial Paper Exchange Corp, overseen by China’s central bank, is the government’s latest effort to improve its financial infrastructure, and will help consolidate a fragmented market that has seen a series of scandals in recent years that involves Agricultural Bank of China and China CITIC Bank.