People's Bank of China

Not to be confused with Bank of China, Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), or National Bank of China.

"PBOC" redirects here. For other uses, see PBOC (disambiguation).

People's Bank of China
Bank logo People's Bank of China headquarters
Headquarters	Beijing, China
Established	December 1, 1948
Governor	Zhou Xiaochuan
Central bank of	People's Republic of China
Currency	PRC Yuan
ISO 4217 Code	CNY
Reserves	US$3.201 trillion
Base borrowing rate	6.56%
Base deposit rate	3.5%
Website	www.pbc.gov.cn
Preceded by	Central Bank of the Republic of China
For other currencies named "Yuan" and their respective central banks, see Chinese Yuan.

People's Bank of China
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	中国人民银行
Traditional Chinese	中國人民銀行
Transcriptions Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Zhōngguó Rénmín Yínháng
Tibetan name
Tibetan	ཀྲུང་གོ་མི་དམངས། མི་རྣམས།དངུལ་ཁང་།
Zhuang name
Zhuang	Cunghgoz Yinzminz Yinzhangz
Uyghur name
Uyghur	جۇڭگو خەلق بانكا

The People's Bank of China (PBC or PBOC) is the central bank of the People's Republic of China with the power to control monetary policy and regulate financial institutions in mainland China. The People’s Bank of China has the most financial assets of any single public finance institution ever.

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 1949 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.

In the 1980s, as part of economic reform, the commercial banking functions of the PBC were split off into four independent but state-owned banks and in 1983, the State Council promulgated that the PBC would function as the central bank of China. Mr. Chen Yuan was instrumental in modernizing the bank in the early 1990's. Its central bank status was legally confirmed on March 18, 1995 by the 3rd Plenum of the 8th National People's Congress. 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.

Although stated in the above section, that the People's Bank of China, (PBoC), is the single largest financial institution in the world, PBoC is in fact the largest central bank at $3.201 trillion dollars, the world's largest publicly owned bank, as of Jan 2010 being the Royal Bank of Scotland at $3.8 trillion in assets followed by Deutsche Bank at $2.9 trillion in assets, (Constance Gustke al., 3 June 2010, Bankrate Inc, Source: Datamonitor).

Management

The top management of the PBC is composed of the governor and a certain number of deputy governors. The governor of the PBC is appointed into or removed from office by the President of the People's Republic of China. The candidate for the governor of the PBC is nominated by the Premier of the State Council and approved by the National People's Congress. When the National People's Congress is in adjournment, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress sanctions the candidacy for the governor of the PBC. The deputy governors of the PBC are appointed into 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 Zhou Xiaochuan. Other high-ranking deputies include Wang Hongzhang, Hu Xiaolian, Liu Shiyu, Ma Delun, Yi Gang, Du Jinfu, Li Dongrong, Guo Qingping.

Structure

The PBC has established 9 regional branches respectively 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).

• 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.

• 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

List of Governors

• Nan Hanchen (南汉宸): October 1949 – October 1954
• Cao Juru (曹菊如): October 1954 – October 1964
• Hu Lijiao (胡立教): October 1964–1966
• Chen Xiyu (陈希愈): May 1973 – January 1978
• Li Baohua (李葆华): January 1978 – April 1982
• Lü Peijian (吕培俭): April 1982 – March 1985
• Chen Muhua (陈慕华): March 1985 – April 1988
• Li Guixian (李贵鲜): April 1988 – July 1993
• Zhu Rongji (朱镕基): July 1993 – June 1995
• Dai Xianglong (戴相龙): June 1995 – December 2002
• Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川): December 2002 – present

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. However, it no longer applies, since the central bank started increasing the rates by 0,25 percentage points at a time.

The most recent rate hike was on 6 July 2011, taking benchmark 1-year rates up by 25 basis points to 6.56% while depo rates were also hiked by 25 basis points to 3.5%.

See also

• China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation
• Renminbi
• Bank of China, state owned commercial bank
• Hong Kong Monetary Authority
• Monetary Authority of Macao
• Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the central bank of the Republic of China