24. People's Bank of China (PBOC)
| Minister: | Zhou Xiaochuan |
| Vice Ministers: | Wu Xiaoling Su Ning Wang Hongzhang Hu Xiaolian Liu Shiyu Ma Delun Yi Gang Du Jinfu |
| Address: | 32 Chengfangjie, Xicheng District, Beijing 100800 |
| Telephone: | 86-10-6619-4114 |
| Facsimile: | 86-10-6619-5370 |
| Website: | www.pbc.gov.cn |
| Branches: | Chengdu, Guangzhou, Ji'nan, Nanjing, Shanghai, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuhan, Xi'an |
| Departments: | General Office; Treaty and Law; Monetary Policy; Financial Market; Financial Stabilization Bureau; Statistics; Accounting and Financial Affairs; Payment System; Science and Technology; Monetary and Gold & Silver Bureau; State Treasury Bureau; International Affairs; Internal Audit; Personnel and Education; Research Bureau; Trust Obtaining Administration Bureau; Anti-Money Laundering Bureau; Education Department of the CCP Committee |
PBOC was established in 1948 and assumed the responsibilities of a central bank in 1983, even though its status as a central bank was only made official in 1995. Modeled after the US Federal Reserve system, PBOC manages monetary policies through various local offices. It abolished its branches at provincial and municipal levels and instead set up nine regional branches to promote regional economic development and bank efficiency, protect PBOC from interference by local governments, and generally prevent moral hazard in the financial sector. This move increased the ability of the PBOC to implement monetary policies and penalize violators of financial laws and regulations.
As China's central bank, PBOC's main functions include formulating and implementing monetary policy; issuing and administering the circulation of the currency; licensing, supervising, and regulating financial institutions; regulating financial markets; managing official foreign exchange and gold reserves; acting as fiscal agent; maintaining payment and settlement system; collecting and analyzing financial statistical data; participating in international financial activities at the capacity of the central bank; and overseeing the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
Realizing the need to strengthen its banking sector and separate out regulatory functions from broader macro-economic management issues, the State Council removed all policymaking responsibilities from PBOC in March 2003 and installed these functions in the newly created China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC).
For PBOC, the most significant change of the March 2003 reorganization was the drawing of a line between monetary policy and banking supervision. In the past, PBOC could require state banks to purchase government bonds at PBOC-determined interest rates or make specific loans to implement PBOC monetary policy goals. The move to shift banks away from PBOC supervision will arguably allow the banks to operate on more commercial terms. Under the 1998 restructuring plan, banks can conduct more independent feasibility studies on projects and reject loan applications for projects that are not commercially viable.
PBOC maintains two operations offices, nine regional branches, 326 prefecture-level sub-branches, and 1,827 county-level sub-branches. Other affiliates of the PBOC include the Bank Note Printing Co., the Clearing Center, China Foreign Exchange Trading Center, and a number of representative offices in major international financial centers.
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