A popular saying within the financial industry is that 2013 was the year of Internet finance. The innovative power of internet technology has brought a series of changes to the industry.

Before 2013, finance was once thought of as the exclusive domain of traditional institutions. China's internet giants are the gamer changers. Tencent and Alibaba, saw exponential growth in their mobile payment services last year. Even more remarkable was Alibaba's pioneering product Yu'ebao- an online wealth management service, that attracted almost 250 billion yuan in just 7 months, making it the biggest currency fund in China. There is also P2P lending, platforms that connect micro loans and borrowers. Last year its volume hit over 100 billion yuan. Such rapid growth has raised concerns over security of Internet finance. But business insiders say the risk should not be exaggerated.

Yang Yifu, co-founder of Renrenyouxin.com, said, "The essence of internet finance is to simplify user experience. However, the core of finance in this case has not changed, which is risk management. Internet finance will not weaken any risk management process."

"Internet finance is in accordance with the government's objective to let more private capital into the financial sector. Internet technology can speed up this process. Overall, it will lower businesses' lending costs and benefit everybody,"Yang said.

That spirit of the internet and evident consumer demand, could drive internet finance growth further in 2014.

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