China's banking watchdog said Monday it had punished 799 staff
members of the country's Big Four state banks after finding they
were involved in illegal or unauthorized business totaling as much
as 588.5 billion yuan (about US$73 billion).
The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) said in a
report the wrongdoers were working in 103 different-level
institutions of the Big Four, including the Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, China
Construction Bank and Bank of China. It checked a total of 14,039
such institutions.
The news came as China struggles to overhaul the Big Four by
building them into joint-stock firms, inviting foreign strategic
investors and then listing them on the market. Under a commitment
to the World Trade Organization, the country must give foreign
rivals full access to its financial market by the end of 2006.
The Construction Bank of China has already gone public in Hong
Kong, while the Bank of China is widely forecast to sell shares to
private investors in the coming year.
On Monday, the CBRC acknowledged that while the state banks are
making progress in building up corporate governance, "illegal
cases, including big cases, are still frequently seen."
Calling 2006 a "key year" for financial reform, it urged the Big
Four, which account for more than half of the country's deposits
and lending, to "tide over the difficulties" and promote the
banking industry's healthy, stable expansion.
(Xinhua News Agency December 27, 2005)