The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) is expected to unveil a major organisational overhaul in June as part of ongoing efforts to streamline the Chinese financial regulatory system.
Sources close to the matter said to Quanshang that by the end of June CBIRC will release a new “Three Settings” plan (三定方案) that will make profound changes to the organisational structure of the recently established regulator.
The move comes just months after the formation of CBIRC via the merger of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), as part of efforts by the central government to improve the efficiency of financial regulation and stamp out “regulatory arbitrage.”
The “Three Settings” plan will involve the “setting of functions, setting of organisations and setting of personnel,” outlining new directions and work methods for CBIRC staff.
The Plan will encompass all 28 departments, 36 provincial bureaus and 306 local branches that were formerly part of CBRC, as well as the 15 functional organisations, two public institutions and 36 regional bureaus of CIRC.
According to sources the Plan will see CBRC’s 28 departments and CIRC’s 15 functional organisations reorganised into a total of 26 departments under CBIRC, marking a sharp reduction in the total number of sub-entities.
Xu Zhong (徐忠), head of the research department of the Chinese central bank, previously said that the merger of banking and insurance regulatory functions would be of benefit to concentrating and integrating regulatory resources, and making full use of specialist advantages.
In addition to a reduction in the number of CBIRC sub-organisations, reforms are also expected to see some staff and offices transferred to China’s central bank – the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), as part of a shift in regulatory functions.
Following the latest regulatory shake-up CBIRC is responsible for overseeing banking and insurance activities, while PBOC is responsible for the drafting of key regulations governing both sectors alongside macro-prudential regulation.
According to a recent report from Caixin the new Three Settings plan will see the transfer of several dozen staff from CBIRC’s policy and legal department (政策法规部) to the head office of PBOC.
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