In an effort to reinforce the national campaign against Internet pornography, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) has issued a circular requiring all banks to investigate online transactions.

"Some pornographic websites have used the banks' online transaction service as a means to charge clients, negatively influencing their reputations and business," said the country's banking watchdog.

"Once a website is found to be involved in pornographic business, banks should immediately cut off its capital," said the circular.

CBRC asked the banks to strengthen the monitoring of their daily business and report anything abnormal, including suspicious domain names, IP addresses and bank card numbers, to public security departments.

Banks are responding to the circular.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has checked all 355of its contracted websites to ensure that they possess certificates for online business and have promised not to engage in "indecent activities."

The China Construction Bank designated a liaison person in each of its branches, who is to be responsible for reporting updated information about the performance of contracted websites.

A nationwide crackdown on pornographic websites kicked off in mid-July, and is currently in full swing. The campaign is to rein in what the central government perceives as the harmful influences of the Internet in a country where usage has exploded in recent years, with 87 million users.

(Xinhua News Agency August 20, 2004)