People's Bank of China

People's Bank of China
中国人民银行
Zhōngguó Rénmín Yínháng

People's Bank of China headquarters in Beijing
Headquarters	Beijing and Shanghai
Coordinates	39°54′24″N 116°21′14″E / 39.90667°N 116.35389°E / 39.90667; 116.35389Coordinates: 39°54′24″N 116°21′14″E / 39.90667°N 116.35389°E / 39.90667; 116.35389 (Beijing)
Established	1 December 1948; 72 years ago (1948-12-01)
Ownership	State Council of the People's Republic of China
Party Secretary Governor	Guo Shuqing Yi Gang
Central bank of	People's Republic of China
Currency	Renminbi (RMB) CNY (ISO 4217)
Reserves	US$3.21 trillion (November 2017)[1]
Reserve requirements	17%[2]
Bank rate	4.3%[3]
Interest on reserves	3.5%
Website	Official website (English)

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The People's Bank of China (PBC or PBOC; simplified Chinese: 中国人民银行; traditional Chinese: 中國人民銀行; pinyin: Zhōngguó Rénmín Yínháng) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China responsible for carrying out monetary policy and regulation of financial institutions in mainland China, as determined by People's Bank Law and Commercial Bank Law. Valued at US$3.21 trillion,^[1] the People's Bank of China has had the largest financial asset holdings of any central bank in the world since July 2017.^[4][5] Though possessing a high degree of independence by Chinese standards, it remains a cabinet-level executive department of the State Council.^[6]

History[]

The bank was established on December 1, 1948, based on the consolidation of the Huabei Bank, the Beihai Bank and the Xibei Farmer Bank. The headquarters was first located in Shijiazhuang, Hebei, and then moved to Beijing in 1949. Between 1950 and 1978 the PBC was the only bank in the People's Republic of China and was responsible for both central banking and commercial banking operations. All other banks within Mainland China such as the Bank of China were either organized as divisions of the PBC^[7] or were non-deposit taking agencies.^[8][9]

From 1952 to 1955 government shares were added to private banks to make state-private banks, until under the first Five Year plan from 1955 to 1959 the PBOC had complete control of the private banks, making them branches of the PBOC, closely resembling the vision of Vladimir Lenin. With aid from the Soviet Union, the shares of private enterprises and with them industrial output followed a similar path, forming a Soviet-style planned economy.

With the exception of special allocations for rural development, the monolithic PBOC dominated all business transactions and credit until 1978,^[10] when, as part of the Chinese economic reforms, the State Council split off the commercial banking functions of the PB into four independent but state-owned banks, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the Bank of China (BOC), the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), and the China Construction Bank (CCB).^[11] In 1983, the State Council promulgated that the PBC would function as the central bank of China.

Chen Yuan was instrumental in modernizing the bank in the early 1990s. Its central bank status was legally confirmed on March 18, 1995 by the 3rd Plenum of the 8th National People's Congress, and was granted a high degree of independence by an act that year.^[12] In 1998, the PBC underwent a major restructuring. All provincial and local branches were abolished, and the PBC opened nine regional branches, whose boundaries did not correspond to local administrative boundaries. In 2003, the Standing Committee of the Tenth National People's Congress approved an amendment law for strengthening the role of PBC in the making and implementation of monetary policy for safeguarding the overall financial stability and provision of financial services.

Management[]

The top management of the PBC are composed of the governor and a certain number of deputy governors. The governor of the PBC is appointed into or removed by the National People's Congress or its Standing Committee. The candidate for the governor of the PBC is nominated by the Premier of the People's Republic of China approved by the National People's Congress. When the National People's Congress is in adjournment, the Standing Committee sanctions the candidacy for the governor of the PBC. The deputy governors of the PBC are appointed to or removed from office by the Premier of the State Council.

The PBC adopts a governor responsibility system under which the governor supervises the overall work of the PBC while the deputy governors provide assistance to the governor to fulfill his or her responsibility.

The current governor is Yi Gang. Deputy governors of the management team include: , Pan Gongsheng, Fan Yifei, , Zhang Xiaohui, and Yang Ziqiang.^[13] Former top-level managers include: Ms. Hu Xiaolian, Liu Shiyu, and Ms. Jin Qi.

Structure[]

People's Bank of China Tianjin branch, formerly the Central Bank Tientsin Branch building until 1949, now a protected heritage site

The PBC has established 9 regional branches, one each in Tianjin, Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing, Jinan, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Xi'an, 2 operations offices in Beijing and Chongqing, 303 municipal sub-branches and 1809 county-level sub-branches.

It has 6 overseas representative offices (PBC Representative Office for America, PBC Representative Office (London) for Europe, PBC Tokyo Representative Office, PBC Frankfurt Representative Office, PBC Representative Office for Africa, Liaison Office of the PBC in the Caribbean Development Bank).

The PBC consists of 18 functional departments (bureaus) as below:^[14]

• General Administration Department
• Legal Affairs Department
• Monetary Policy Department
• Financial Market Department
• Financial Stability Bureau
• Financial Survey and Statistics Department
• Accounting and Treasury Department
• Payment System Department
• Technology Department
• Currency, Gold and Silver Bureau
• State Treasury Bureau
• International Department
• Internal Auditing Department
• Personnel Department
• Research Bureau
• Credit Information System Bureau
• Anti-Money Laundering Bureau (Security Bureau)
• Education Department of the CPC PBC Committee

The following enterprises and institutions are directly under the PBC:^[15]

• China Anti-Money Laundering Monitoring and Analysis Center
• PBC Graduate School
• China Financial Publishing House
• Financial News
• China National Clearing Center
• China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation
• China Gold Coin Incorporation
• China Financial Computerization Corporation
• China Foreign Exchange Trade System

Microfinance[]

• Rural credit cooperatives

Financial inclusion[]

The PBOC is active in promoting financial inclusion policy and a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.^[16]

List of governors[]

Interest rates[]

Previously, interest rates set by the bank were always divisible by nine, instead of by 25 as in the rest of the world.^[17][18] However, since the central bank began to increase rates by 0.25 percentage points on October 19, 2010, this is no longer the case.

PBC latest interest rate changes:^[3]

Reserve requirement ratio[]

PBC latest reserve requirement ratio (RRR) changes:

Foreign-exchange reserves[]

Foreign-exchange reserves from 2004:^[23][24]

See also[]

• China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation
• Renminbi, the Chinese national currency
• Internationalization of the renminbi
• Bank of China, state-owned commercial bank
• Hong Kong Monetary Authority
• Monetary Authority of Macao
• Central Bank of Taiwan
• List of largest banks
• List of microfinance banks

References[]

Further reading[]

• Stephen Bell and Hui Feng. The Rise of the People's Bank of China: The Politics of Institutional Change (Harvard University Press; 2013) 384 pages; Recent history; uses interviews with key figures

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to People's Bank of China.

• People's Bank of China official website