A slew of China’s leading A-share banks have made key changes to senior-most executives since the start of 2022.
At least 20 out of China’s 42 A-share banks have changed their chairpersons, presidents or vice-presidents in 2022, including big state-owned lenders Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), China Construction Bank (CCB), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC), as well as joint-stock banks China Everbright Bank, Industrial Bank Co., Ltd. and Huaxia Bank and Bank of Ningbo, and municipal lenders Bank of Beijing, Bank of Jiangsu and Bank of Changsha.
On 2 December ABC announced that its board had approved the appointment of Fu Wanjun (付万军) as president. Fu was formerly the president and executive chair of joint-stock lender China Everbright Bank.
China Everbright Bank has since announced that its board has approved the appointment of Wang Zhiheng (王志恒) as Fu Wanjun’s replacement, contingent upon approval from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC).
Wang is a veteran of big state-owned lender Bank of China (BOC), where he has held the positions of party committee member and vice-president.
Earlier in the year PSBC chair Zhang Jinjiang (张金良) was appointed deputy-party secretary of CCB in April, before assuming the role of CCB president in May.
Just prior to this CCB’s deputy party-secretary and president Wang Jiang (王江) was appointed party secretary and chair of Everbright Group. In August, Wang obtained approval from CBIRC for appointment to the role of China Everbright Bank chair.
In September, ABC announced that deputy-chair and president Zhang Qingsong (张青松) had resigned from his roles. Zhang subsequently assumed the position of deputy-governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) – being the Chinese central bank.
The appointments show a trend of assigning younger executives to senior-most positions at Chinese banks – in particular smaller-sized regional banks.
Zhuang Lingjun (庄灵君), the new president of Bank of Ningbo, is just 43 years old, while Bank of Changsha president Tang Yong (唐勇) is 44, and Ruifeng Bank’s new president Zhang Xiangrong (张向荣) is 45.
