A whole new level

26 January 2018 By Pete Sweeney Follow @petesweeneypro

A mooted merger of the troubled insurance commission and its banking counterpart would reduce risk. Similar unions work well elsewhere. This could help pave the way for a “super-regulator”, perhaps led by bank tsar Guo Shuqing. Further judicious consolidation would be healthy.

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China is mulling merging its banking and insurance regulators, Bloomberg News reported on Jan. 26, citing people familiar with the matter. The proposal could be made at an upcoming annual political conference in March.

The China Insurance Regulatory Commission would be merged with the China Banking Regulatory Commission under the plan. Beijing has been exploring ways to consolidate its financial regulatory apparatus since 2015, when a stock market crash was blamed in part on poor inter-agency coordination.

The CBRC is run by Guo Shuqing, a former central banker considered a candidate to replace People's Bank of China chief Zhou Xiaochuan when he retires. The CIRC has gone without a chairman since April, when the government removed former chief Xiang Junbo for disciplinary violations.

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