China's new banking commission officially started functioning Monday, setting out on a mission to reform the country's banks ridden with bad loans and to stave off banking risks.

The timing of the official launch of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) was largely expected, but it was still unclear how differently the new commission would approach its designated role of regulating and supervising China's banks and other deposit-taking financial institutions.

A plenary session of the National People's Congress last month passed the proposal to set up a separate organization to take over the central People's Bank of China (PBOC)'s work of supervising banks.

A further Congress decision last week gave that regulatory role to the new commission, as legislators work to revise China's Central Bank Law, which stipulates that the central bank is to regulate banks.

Wei Jianing, a senior researcher with the State Council's Development Research Center, said: "We expect the CBRC to do its job of preventing and dissolving banking risks increasingly by means of reinforcing bank supervision, brushing up its level of regulatory expertise, and fostering a greater pool of first-class regulatory personnel.''

The paramount goal of the landmark reform is to improve the efficiency of bank supervision and the central bank's monetary policy making. Analysts said the central bank's playing of the two roles had eroded the efficiency of both.

The commission Monday vowed to implement long-term planning and ensure "some innovation'' in the areas of regulatory methodology, systems and technologies to modernize financial supervision and make it more professional.

The new body also pledged to establish co-ordination mechanisms with the insurance and securities regulatory authorities to ensure China's financial security.

The 15-department banking commission said its major responsibilities include "formulating supervisory rules and regulations for banking institutions, (and) authorizing the establishment, changes, termination, branching out and business scope of banking institutions.''

It is also responsible for making proposals on the resolution of problem deposit-taking institutions and "performing other responsibilities delegated by the State Council.''

Regional branches of the commission are being set up, it said. Analysts said it could cost tens of billions of yuan (billions of US dollars) to set up branches for the ministerial-level commission in some 320 cities where the central bank has a prefectural office, due to expenditure on office buildings, personnel and equipment.

(China Daily April 29, 2003)