Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, has been named Party secretary of the to-be-formed China banking and insurance regulatory commission, the country’s top banking regulator said in a post on its website on March 22.
The announcement was made after China’s national legislature approved an institutional restructuring plan of the State Council, the cabinet, on March 17. According to the plan, the country’s top banking and insurance regulators will be merged.
Guo said at the appointment meeting that the formation of the China banking and insurance regulatory commission “is of great significance in terms of promoting the construction of a modern financial regulatory framework, improving the ability to regulate banking and insurance activities, and waging a tough war on financial risks”.
He said the management team will push ahead in an orderly manner with the formation of the new agency and will continue to do a good job in regulation. In particular, he highlighted the importance of making sure that daily work such as financial regulation and major risk disposal will be carried out as normal during the process of institutional reforms, according to the post on the CBRC website.
Since he took office as chairman of the CBRC in February 2017, the banking regulator has launched a number of guidelines and rules on various aspects of the banking sector, including regulation of entrusted loans, equity management at commercial banks and data governance. It also tightened inspection and got tougher on the correction of irregular financial market activities. “Guo has a strong ability to execute, whether as a regulatory official or as a senior banking executive,” said Wu Qing, chief economist of China Orient Asset Management Co Ltd, who has been a research fellow on the banking sector for many years.
“After the merger of banking and insurance regulators, the new agency will be more effective at execution of upcoming rules and policy adjustments,” Wu said.
