Speaking at the recent Asian Development Bank annual meeting in South Korea, Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), said: “The ultimate success of the reforms lies in diversification of the banks’ ownership and fundamental transformation of their operating mechanisms.” BoC and China Construction Bank have been chosen to carry out reforms on a pilot basis and recently both received massive capital injections.
Du Chaochua, deputy general manager at BoC, explained to The Banker that PricewaterhouseCoopers has been brought in to check the bank’s results and the government has allowed the bank to deduct NPLs through profits. The first major step will be to bring in a strategic partner and restructure the board of directors, but no decision has been made on what percentage the prospective partner will take. Once a new structure is in place, probably later this year, the IPO process will begin but no decisions have been made yet on advisers or where the IPO will be listed.
