China is embarking on the biggest consolidation of its banking industry by merging hundreds of rural lenders into regional giants amid growing signs of financial stress
After engineering mergers of rural cooperatives and rural commercial banks in at least seven provinces since 2022, policymakers look to tackle risks in the $6.7 trillion sector this year.
That means another wave of consolidation is on the way across the nation.
“It’s where risks are the most concentrated among smaller financial institutions, so China is pushing the reform at a faster pace,” said Liu Xiaochun, deputy director of think-tank Shanghai Finance Institute.
Source: Bloomberg