The new leadership at the Bank of China is striving to distance itself from the corruption and malpractice associated with its disgraced former president, Wang Xuebing. South China Morning Post quoted an unnamed bank official as saying that profits have increased and no new financial irregularities have been revealed since Liu Mingkang replaced Wang in February 2000.
The bank had been fined a total of US$20m for violations of US currency regulations committed while Wang was in charge of the bank’s New York branch. In addition, two branches of the bank in Guangdong province are under investigation for allegedly siphoning off about Yn6bn into illegal offshore accounts. The actions took place while Wang was president and were only revealed when a new computerised accounting system improved the supervision of secondary branches by the bank headquarters.
The bank reported a gross profit of Yn10.8bn for 2001, a 4.7 per cent year-onyear rise, after increasing provisions for bad loans that reduced its non-performing loan ratio by 4.1 per cent to 24.2 per cent.
You must log in to post a comment.