History, politics, economic plans. These are some of the words that come to mind when thinking of China’s banking sector. Its participants – mostly large state-owned banks – have been pivotal vehicles for government policy, starting from the Qing dynasty, which spanned from the 17th to the 20th century, all the way to Deng Xiaoping’s post-1979 liberalisation drive.
But the China Banking Regulatory Commission's (CBRC's) March 2014 announcement of a pilot programme to establish five privately owned banks in the country marked a momentous change in the largely state-controlled banking sector, in which private banks account for only slightly more than 10% of capital.
