Chinese financial watchdog fines three banks 10m yuan

China's financial regulator on Friday disclosed fines of 10 million yuan on three banks - China Construction Bank, Bank of China and China CITIC Bank. It was also the first group of fines issued by the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) in 2024.

The Bank of China was fined 4.3 million yuan, the highest among the three banks, for nine violations, including failure to report the use and changes of important information system to regulatory authorities, the non-standard production and changes of important information system causing major emergency, poorly identifying and handling of operation risks of information system, and imprudent management of outsourcing information technology.

The China Construction Bank was fined 1.7 million yuan ($239,000) for four violations, inadequate internal audit of consolidated management, inadequate case management of overseas institutions by parent bank, failure to report on the employment of senior managers of overseas subsidiaries in a timely manner, and ineffective rectification of found problems, according to a NFRA notice published on its official website.

The China CITIC Bank was fined 4 million yuan for six violations, which are mostly related to its data center operations and management practices that fall short of regulatory requirements.

The fintech-related fines issued by the NFRA at the beginning of 2024, to a certain extent, reflects regulatory focus on strengthening supervision of information systems in the future, a securities analyst, surnamed Liu, told the Global Times on Saturday.

In November 2023, the NFRA established a new department taking care of technology supervision, covering oversight of cybersecurity, data security and critical information infrastructure.