China's chief banking regulator has urged banks to move into poor regions and vowed to make it easier for them to open outlets in those regions, the South China Morning Post reported. China Banking Regulatory Commission chairman Liu Mingkang told a financial seminar over the weekend the government was implementing measures to encourage commercial banks and financial institutions to set up branches in poor and rural areas in order to help peasants get loans. The remarks follow recent criticism by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus over the development of microcredit projects in the country. Cheng Siwei, a vice-chairman of the National People's Congress, said the mainland should learn from the experience of the Bangladeshi economist and the Grameen Bank he founded to give small loans to needy peasants, who he said were often ignored by state-run banks and had to resort to underground banking or usury.