China debates creation of financial super-regulator

Super-regulator to oversee the banking, securities and insurance sectors.

Wang Feng, deputy director of the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform said the issue is quite complicated. The government has so far refrained from reforming its current financial regulatory bodies in its latest institutional reform package.

Wang said policymakers noticed that a financial regulator with mixed operations is a trend in other countries compared with a single regulator supervising the banking, securities and insurance sectors.

China currently has the China Banking Regulatory Commission to oversee the banking sector, the China Securities Regulatory Commission to supervise the equity markets and the China Insurance Regulatory Commission to regulate the insurance sector.

"Should we change the existing method of regulation? We don't know. Is it the time now? We don't know," Wang said, "So let's take a cautious attitude and have a look first."