Anti-graft authorities to inspect financial firms

China’s disciplinary authorities are allocating supervision teams to large financial enterprises as part of the country’s intensified efforts to fight corruption in the financial sector.

The inspections were a response to incidents of misconduct in banks and securities regulators such as intentionally overselling stocks and faking official seals to illegally approve insider dealing, Chinese analysts said.

Zhao Leji, Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, said on Friday that the teams will be dispatched to form a discipline inspection and supervision system, Beijing Youth Daily reported on its WeChat account on Saturday.

The team will enter enterprises administered by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), major Stateowned banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of China, Chinese insurance giants like People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China (PICC) and policy banks such as the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China.

The Export-Import Bank of China was inspected by the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in 2013, while another 14 SASAC-administered companies received inspections for the first time in 2015, the China News Service reported. It is not reported how long the teams will be in place. No other details have been released.

“The move aims to improve the discipline inspection and supervision system. The allocation will be in the long term as Chinese authorities are strengthening supervision in the financial sector, which is important to the country’s development and reform,” Cai Zhiqiang, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Cai hailed the inspection as a necessary move to reveal corruption, saying that more than 60 percent of clues for corruption cases have been found during such inspection and supervision.

Reports about corruption in the financial industry have made a splash in recent years on Chinese social media platforms.

Yao Zhongmin, former chairman of the board of supervisors at CDB, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for accepting bribes.

Yao was also fined 3.5 million yuan ($507,000) and his illegally obtained assets were turned over to the State treasury, according to the verdict issued by the Intermediate People’s Court of Baoding in North China’s Hebei Province, the Xinhua News Agency reported in August last year.