Shareholders in China’s rural commercial banks have been offloading their stakes on Taobao, the biggest online Chinese auction site, in a sign of the increasingly desperate steps being taken by cash-strapped investors.

The stake sales in the lenders at the bottom of China’s financial system, which are also appearing on the China Beijing Equity Exchange and an over-the-counter market, require minimal regulatory approval, if any at all. Until this month, an official freeze on initial public offerings in Shanghai and Shenzhen has trapped shareholders from divesting as valuations fall.

The backdoor methods for cashing out of the banks reflects a new urgency among shareholders to leave the sector amid dwindling returns and mounting bad debt. State-backed Securities Daily called the marketing of bank shares on the Beijing Equity Exchange a “clearance sale” of the deposit-taking institutions once carefully regulated by the state.