Chinese Banking Regulator Has Issued 372 Fines Since Start of 2018

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The China Banking Regulatory Commission is maintaining heavy pressure on the country’s lenders, issuing a total of 372 fines during the period from the start of 2018 until 11 February.

CBRC’s official website indicates that banks have incurred fines for a broad range of non-compliant conduct, including illicit levying of fees, dereliction of post-loan management, as well as inadequate disclosure of information in relation to non-standard wealth management products.

In terms of China’s regions Shaanxi province accounted for the largest number of fines at 113 in total, followed by Heilongjiang with 26, Henan with 22, Shanxi with 19 Jilin with 17 and Hebei with 16.

Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and Xiamen saw the issuance of 15 fines each, while Tianjin accounted for 13, Jiangsu and Zhejiang 12 each, Hunan ten, Liaoning nine, Ningxia eight, Guangdong seven, and Hubei and Shanghai both six.

Major cases exposed since the start of the year include the extension of USD$12.14 billion in credit to shell companies by the Chengdu branch of the Shanghai Pudong Development, in a bid to conceal its non-performing loans, as well as a $3 billion pledged loan fraud case in northern China which saw a total of 19 banks incur fines.

Shortly after incumbent chair Guo Shuqing took office a year ago, CBRC launched a heavy-handed crackdown on the Chinese banking sector which saw it issue a record number of fines in 2017.

The latest official data indicates that the CBRC dispensed 3,452 penalties in 2017, as well as confiscated funds from 1,877 financial institutions worth a total of 2.93 billion yuan (approx. USD$465 million), for a 10-fold increase compared to 2016.

CBRC also hopes to step up regulation of the behaviour of banking sector professionals, releasing the “Banking Sector Financial Institution Professional Conduct Administration Guideline (Draft for Opinions) (银行业金融机构从业人员行为管理指引(征求意见稿)) on 11 February.