BEIJING, Jan 25 (Reuters) - China’s central bank will look into and punish illegal personal credit scoring businesses, a central bank official said on Monday, as the government tightens regulation on fintech firms who collect and use personal data in financial services.

“The personal credit scoring business conducted by those carrying the name of big data companies or fintech firms without obtaining the permission from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) are considered as illegal activities,” Tian Di, deputy chief of PBOC’s Credit Information System Bureau, told reporters at a news conference in Beijing.

Technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data have been developed and applied rapidly over the years, Tian said, which brought more and more illegal players into the personal credit scoring market, harming the interests of data owners.

Tian’s remarks came days after the release of draft PBOC rules which clarified the scope of information and businesses to be included in credit scoring regulation and urged agencies to apply for licenses and not to over-collect data from users.

“The PBOC will seriously look into and punish any illegal personal credit scoring business by laws and regulations, and push forward a regulated, fairly competed, high quality development of the industry,” Tian said. (Reporting by Rong Ma and Ryan Woo; Editing by Toby Chopra)