Nine more banks approved for GBA Wealth Management Connect
Officially launched in September 2021, the WMC allows individuals living in nine cities in the mainland section of the GBA, to invest in approved wealth management products marketed and sold in Hong Kong and Macau and vice-versa…
Guangdong issues five-year plan for trade in services with implications for GBA integration
One of the major challenges in the development of the GBA has been achieving a reasonable degree of interoperability between the different legal and economic systems of Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong. As is often the case with five-year plans, the roadmap laid out by the Guangdong government is relatively high-level and lacking in substantive details…
CBIRC report highlights problems with personal insurance products
China is underinsured and the CBIRC is working hard to expand the personal insurance sector, pushing companies to increase the types of products they offer and encouraging the development of online insurance, among other efforts…
NDRC issues opinions on measures to advance GBA integration
Over the past two and half years, Shenzhen has been subject to a bevy of long-range, high-level policy documents pointing the way for its strategic development and granting it significant leeway to experiment with new policies. However, these policy prescriptions are more aspirational than instructional…
CBIRC issues new rules for management of IT outsourcing risks at banks and insurers
The new rules reflect financial regulators’ growing concerns over technology-related risks in China’s increasingly digitized financial system. Regulators are not only worried…
PBoC, CBIRC, CSRC issue final version of anti-money laundering measures
Members of the FATF are required to meet certain standards and obligations, and the 2019 report, which exposed serious shortcomings in China’s anti-money laundering regulatory framework and enforcement, was a wake-up call for China’s financial regulators to get their act together…
PBoC, SAFE release notice on regulating offshore lending
In the short term, the adjustments will help to standardize offshore lending practices, and despite their incremental nature, these types of moves will add up to significantly ease cross-border capital flows over time. Further, Beijing will continually look to expand the RMB’s prominence in cross-border business by regularly tweaking and improving measures like these…
CSRC steps up supervision of biggest money market funds
The CSRC wants to identify MMFs that are too big to fail – and ensure they don’t. These are the latest set of rules that form part of regulators’ efforts to ensure the financial risks associated with such funds are controllable and that a sudden mass withdrawal of money by depositors won’t destabilize money markets…
Regulators issue measures to link China’s bond markets
Connecting China’s two bond markets to make life easier for investors and deepen market liquidity has been in the works for several years. It’s been a slow process, inevitable perhaps given the turf wars among the different supervisory bodies, but this latest announcement shows the regulatory framework and the mechanics of the linkup are finally being put in place…
First company transfers from Beijing Stock Exchange to STAR Market
On January 27, Beijing-based drone-maker Guandian Defense Technology Co. Ltd. received approval…
PBoC and others announce 3-year anti-money laundering plan
Getting China’s AML laws in line with international standards is less about lax regulation and more about shoddy enforcement – especially in newer, under-regulated sectors like fintech. This action plan is squarely aimed at that latter concern…
CBIRC holds work conference, lays out priorities for 2022
Maintaining stability and mitigating risk remain at the heart of the CBIRC’s 2022 plans – much the same as in 2021. That’s doubly true this year, as leaders want to ensure that the Beijing Olympics (February) and the Party Congress (October) go off without a hitch…
CBIRC declares victory over WMPs
These reforms are a huge success for the CBIRC. WMPs went from being a black box of financial risk to being transparent, well-regulated, and boring investment vehicles within the course of three years…
China Aviation Cloud begins work on Nansha data port
The Nansha Data Port effort should be viewed in the context of an emerging race in China to build cross-border data exchange infrastructure. Notably, the Guangzhou government called the Nansha port China’s “first” cross-border data pilot project, but this is debatable – Hainan embarked on similar pilot in 2020 as part of the island’s FTZ, and Shanghai is also vigorously pursuing cross-border data exchange in its FTZ in Lingang New Area…
CBIRC strengthens rules for off-site supervision of insurance companies
The growth of China’s insurance industry has been accompanied by a series of measures designed to improve supervision and oversight mechanisms. As the industry continues to expand, off-site – as opposed to on-site – supervision will play an increasingly important role in ensuring that insurers’ operations are above board and preventing the occurrence of major risk events…
Hong Kong expands mainland Connect programs to cover ETFs
The end of 2021 featured a spate of activity related to the two-way opening of China’s capital markets. On December 17, the CSRC also proposed expanding the Shanghai-London Stock Connect to include markets in Switzerland, Germany, and Shenzhen…
PboC outlines priorities for 2022
The central bank’s list of 2022 priorities looks an awful lot like its list of 2021 priorities. If the end of 2021 is any indication, 2022 will see increased financial support for priority areas like small businesses, innovation, and the low-carbon transition…
January foreign financial institution approvals and specific financial opening developments
HSBC cleared to take full ownership of mainland life insurance business…
CBIRC issues rules on related-party transactions, announces inspection of insurance funds
After recent high-profile financial scandals involving related-party transactions – including those that engulfed Baoshang Bank Co. Ltd. and Anbang Insurance Group Co. Ltd. – the CBIRC has made the untangling of shady webs of influence within and among financial institutions a top priority…
C-ROSS Phase II goes into effect
As China’s insurance sector continues to grow, developing a robust risk-focused framework that ensures companies have sufficient reserves will be crucial to overall financial stability. An insurer’s failure to meet payouts on the policies it has underwritten could have severe knock-on effects throughout the financial sector and could damage consumer confidence in insurance more broadly…